


In Marcher Fields ...

by ShannaraIsles



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: ALL the awkward, Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual, Denial, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Foreplay, Frottage, Grief/Mourning, Implied Suicide Attempt, Injury, Lyrium Addiction, Mention of past Torture/Trauma, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Power Couple!, Reconciliation, Retelling, Reunion, Self Pity Party, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, declaration of feelings, fluffy fluff, implied past sexual assault, more angst!, they won't say they're in love, trust me now?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-03-02 22:46:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 59,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13328007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannaraIsles/pseuds/ShannaraIsles
Summary: Poppy Hawke was never the daughter her mother wanted, the sister her twin preferred, the hero Kirkwall desired. They do not see the woman who stands between them and the chaos that threatens. No one takes the time to look, until she crosses the path of a certain Knight-Captain with demons of his own to battle ...





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

 

_**9:32 Dragon, Bloomingtide** _

 

"How long, do you suppose, until the tide recedes far enough to reach the islet safely?"

"A couple of hours, at least."

Poppy looked over at her companion, rolling her eyes at the scowl on his face. It was his own fault they were stuck in this cave for the next couple of hours; she didn't think Knight-Captain Cullen really had much call to be looking _quite_ so moody. Or so ... _tempting_. She bit her lip, turning away before she could let her eyes wander over the sodden cling of his linen undershirt. His armor and weapons were stacked neatly against the wall of the cave, beside her own, no doubt already developing enthusiastic rust thanks to their sojourn in the salt-water.

"Why did you tackle me off the cliff in the first place?" she asked, setting her gaze firmly on the water lapping at the lip of the cave. High water - definitely a couple of hours before the causeway back to dry land was clear enough to traverse. "I was in control of the situation."

"With respect, Mistress Hawke, you were about to take on at least ten Tal Vashoth Qunari alone, with nothing but a pair of daggers and a reckless disregard for your own life," Cullen countered in a heated tone.

"We could have taken them together," she attempted to argue, but she knew he was right. That recklessness was frightening, even to her.

"And at least one of us received an injury neither one has the means to heal out here," the knight-captain reminded her harshly. "You should not have been out here alone."

Poppy bristled at his tone. She _was_ older than him, albeit only a couple of years; he shouldn't be able to scold her for her poor decisions so successfully. "And what were _you_ doing out here?" she demanded. "Beating up more recruits to frighten confessions out of them?"

She instantly regretted her accusation at the stricken expression that flickered over his face. Their first meeting had not been a peaceful one; their second, a little awkward given the state she and her companions had been in at the time. And the last time ...

Poppy swallowed, feeling heat rise in her cheeks as she hugged her arms about herself. She was deeply ashamed of last time, and yet it played on her mind. She'd dreamed about it, relived that night in waking dreams, acutely aware even now that he had given her what she needed most when she needed it and asked for nothing in return. He'd held her as she sobbed and apologized to him over and over again, taken her to a private room in a tavern, spent the rest of the night convincing her that she was not the monster she believed herself to be for taking advantage of his natural weakness against intimate touch. She could feel her breath quickening at the memory, the tingle as her nipples hardened beneath the wet cling of her own undershirt, arms hugging tighter about herself in the hope that if she clenched everything she had, she might somehow manage to hold back the desire that was sparking to life at the knowledge that she and Knight-Captain Cullen were alone together. Again.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, shaking her head as she glanced at him. "I should not have said that. It was petty and uncalled for."

He was silent for a long moment. Then, finally, he spoke.

"I understand that your view of my order has been shaped by your experiences as the sister of an apostate," he said, with surprising calm given the subject matter. "Your view of me is colored by that first encounter we shared not far from here. I assure you, templars are not the violent monsters you believe us to be."

"My view of you is more colored by -" She stopped herself before she could go on, that flush on her cheeks deepening as she hastily turned her back on him. "It doesn't matter."

"Oh, I ... ah."

Poppy could just imagine the awkward, embarrassed look on the young knight-captain's face, cringing at the thought of meeting his eyes again. It wasn't _his_ fault she couldn't get her mind off that night. She shouldn't be reminding him of what he had felt the need to do to prevent her from doing something far worse. But she couldn't forget the gentleness of his tentative callused hands, the heat of his mouth against her skin; the sweet reassurance that someone cared if she lived or died, even if that someone was a templar she barely knew. Her arms hugged tighter about herself, trying to deny the surge of heat in her loins as she made an effort to wrench her thoughts away from those memories.

"You're shivering."

She startled at the sound of his voice so close behind her, just barely catching herself from turning to face him as the barest hint of chilled warmth against her back told her how very close to her he was.

"The br - the breeze is chilly," she offered as an excuse, part of her hoping he would take it, yet the rest hoping he would not.

Whatever her hope, she felt herself stiffen as he stepped close against her back, not quite touching but definitely close enough to feel the heat that radiated from his chest. Did all templars run hot, she wondered distractedly. Was it something to do with the lyrium, or was it something unique to Cullen Rutherford? She was suddenly aware of how thin her undershirt was, how it didn't hang low enough to conceal her smalls or the toned curve of her backside. A glance down at her chest revealed that the poor fabric of the shirt her mother had been trying to replace since they'd come into money did not so much conceal as accentuate the shadow of her breasts. And he was standing close behind her, looming over her shoulder.

She glanced up at him, unable to deny that curious urge, only to find the banked anger of his resting gaze fixed in shame on the suggestion of flesh at the opening of her shirt. In answer to that gaze, she felt her breath deepen, her chest heave, and saw the moment when that resting, unspoken anger that drove him flickered to desire. His mouth opened, the soft pink of his tongue wetting his lips only to swallow down the feeling. She felt fingertips brush her hips and retreat, not needing to look to know his hands were clenched against touching her. She shouldn't take advantage of his desire again, she knew ... but she _wanted_ him. _He_ wanted _her_. There were no eyes to see, no ears to hear. Nothing but that barrier of pain and shame he would not put words to, that she could not bring herself to express by mouth.

"Cullen -"

"Don't." The word was harsh, ripped from his throat even as his hands closed over her hips, holding her in place as though afraid she might step back and find the obvious evidence of his ardor too close to ignore.

She froze, held tight in the grip of strong fingers that were sure to leave bruises, forcing her body to relax, to offer no fight or flight, no demand for what her instincts wanted from him. He was not a boy, but not yet a man; pushing him beyond his own rigid limits would result only in violence that she did not think he could live with himself for handing out, despite his uncompromising views. His fingers flexed at her hips, gripping, loosening ... _pulling_. And she moved with that silent request, letting him draw her back against his chest, guide the curve of her backside to the insistent press of his cock through the confining barrier of his pants.

A low groan touched her ear, painting her skin hot and damp as he bent his head to her neck, pressing his face into her skin as though denying this was even happening, battling his own shame at the desire he felt. And slowly, she felt his pelvis rock, stroking the straining length of himself against the covered swell of her bottom. It wasn't enough - not for him, and certainly not for her. To feel him pressed so close, taking his pleasure almost the way she had taken pleasure from him not so very long ago, wanting more than this teasing sensation that touched nowhere that _wanted_ to be touched ...

Poppy was not a bold woman, not usually. Not in the cause of her own wishes; at least, not openly. Yet under the guise of pleasing him, she could be bold. Her hand crept back, sliding between them, fingertips brushing the covered press of his cock as he shuddered and stilled. She felt his breath stutter against her neck, the sheer effort of will it took for him to stop ... the groan of suppressed need that vibrated against her throat as her rogue's fingers undid laces one-handed to free him from the confines of his leathers. Instinct took him where his shamed senses could not - he thrust into the curling wrap of her fingers, his own hands tearing open the laces of her smalls to drag them from their cling between her legs, the ghost of a sigh on his breath as his hand stroked the tender lips hidden there. A little hard, admittedly, more of a grab than a caress, but enough to draw a staggered moan from her own throat as she arched back against him.

The next moment seemed complicated, too much to follow, but somehow she found him between her thighs, the veined girth she'd touched and tasted and ridden not more than a month ago stroking back and forth between the forgiving slickness that coated her inner thighs. So _close_ ... but not close _enough_ , not anywhere _near_ enough. Friction that teased her, heightened her desire, but ultimately did nothing to sate it even as his pace quickened, already close to his natural end. She staggered as his thrusts grew erratic, forced to cling to his wrists to keep from falling forward under the strength he poured into even those short bursts of highly-charged energy. The very tip of him _almost_ touched the aching bud of her clit ... and he groaned once again, driving hard between her thighs, gripping so tightly the pain of his fingers at her hips stole the edge of that frustrated pleasure as he found his release without a thought for her own.

He stilled, leaning heavily against her back, his breath hot and damp against her shoulder. Not a single word from him as he came back to himself with a sharp intake of breath, as he released her as though she bore some virulent disease, turning away to clean himself, cover himself. Poppy felt bitter disappointment flood her, left aching, wanting, abandoned by the warmth she had promised herself once already she would not crave. She found herself staring at him in dismay, an odd sense of betrayal haunting her features; saw him glance her way and still, pinned in place by the expression in her eyes. Guilt poured through the shame he wore like a shield as his gaze skimmed her, marking the proud peaks that jutted from beneath her shirt, the gleam of her arousal at the apex of her thighs, the slow trickle of his own release now cold on her skin. The evidence of his pleasure taken, and hers barely even touched seemed to burn his gaze, his entire form turning away as his cheeks reddened. But was it shame or satisfaction? Was he _pleased_ with the way he had left her, or guilty?

Anger curled into a tight ball in her stomach. But she was not an angry person. She didn't know how to express it; she'd never learned. Alex and Carver had always been the angry ones; Bethany had been calm one that needed protecting. Poppy was the last Hawke standing; the disappointing daughter who fought well but never stood up when it was her own person under attack. So she swallowed down the words that wanted to rise, turning to snatch up her smalls, wetting them in the salt water to wipe Cullen from her skin and throw the ruined cloth to the ebbing tide. She felt exposed, vulnerable, a raw nerve ready to scream, agonizingly aware of him so close and too proud to even offer an apology for his hasty desires. Despite the damp still clinging to them, she pulled on her leather shorts, her layered armor, glaring at the lapping water as though sheer force of will might make the tide lower faster.

"Hawke -"

Her hand snapped up, one finger pointed directly at the young Knight-Captain, though her eyes never left the sea. "Don't. Just ... don't."

He fell silent, his own resting anger resuming its place on his face as he, too, armored himself once more. Together, without words, they waded through the ebbing tide to the islet, returning to Kirkwall in steaming silence. Not even the Tal Vashoth were prepared to attack a pair so obviously infuriated, so clearly ready for a fight. A pair that parted ways at the gate still without words, ashamed and angry with themselves and each other. Poppy didn't see Cullen pause at the dock, didn't feel his guilt-ridden gaze on her back as she marched away, berating herself for her own weakness.

She'd wanted him, and he'd taken his pleasure. Yes, he was young; no, it was likely he'd never learned to please a woman. But she'd thought better of him. It had been a foolish feeling, a thoughtless whim. A lesson in why she should never reach for anyone to take care of her. Her jaw set in a hard line.

She would not be that weak again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For your consideration should you feel inclined to snap at me over this characterization, Cullen is a twenty-year-old man at this point in the narrative with very little in the way of experience when it comes to relationships or physical intimacy. Please don’t attack me for it.


	2. Chapter 2

_**9:32 Dragon, Early Justinian** _

Even at this time of night, Lowtown still bore signs of life. Low-life, certainly; the kind of life that likes to take advantage of other life. That was the reason Poppy was leaning on Merrill as they made their way down the alienage steps. Theoretically, she was escorting the young elf home safely before making her way back to Hightown. In reality, she had drunk a little too much for her own good, and needed the extra support while she walked for a little while to shake off the worst of the drunk.

"Are you happy, Hawke?" Merrill asked her as they rounded the vhenadahl with only a little staggering.

"Mmm?" Poppy raised her head, blinking owlishly as she took her weight off the smaller woman. "Why shouldn't I be happy?"

"You don't _seem_ happy," Merrill told her, worry etched on her delicate features. "You drank so much tonight, and you were very quiet. Aren't you pleased your brother is alive?" 

Ah, Alex. They'd been so sure he'd died at Ostagar, she and Carver. They'd mourned for him in their own way, and fast on the heels of that loss had come Carver's death. A death that was her fault, her mother's blame sunk deep into her heart. And then Bethany, in the Deep Roads. Another loss that could be laid at Poppy's feet. Leandra had barely spoken to her for a full month when she'd returned with that terrible news, and now, just when mother and daughter were beginning to find some parity again ... Alex showed up, alive and well. Not dead, after all. Her twin, the other half of herself, restored to them after more than a year of struggles alone in Ferelden. He'd come to Kirkwall as soon as he was able to, knowing that their mother would insist, and for just a few minutes, Poppy had let herself be glad, grateful, _happy_ to see him safe and returned to them. But Alex had always been Leandra's golden boy, and within minutes of his arrival at the estate in Hightown, Poppy might as well have not existed again. She was back to being the disappointing daughter, but at least Leandra had her special boy to brighten her days again.

"I _am_ pleased," she promised Merrill, pausing at the door to the elven mage's house. "Really, I am. Just ... it's complicated, Merrill. Family's family. I love them, but I don't always like them. They don't always like me."

"Oh. But you're lovely! You're very easy to like, you know."

Poppy felt her face crease into a warmer smile for her younger friend, who always wanted to see the best. "It's very sweet that you think so," she said, patting Merrill a little too hard on the shoulder. "Go on inside. Didn't need the string to get home tonight, huh?"

The elven mage giggled, rubbing her shoulder as she opened her door. "Do you want to stay here? You're a bit ..."

Poppy's grin deepened. "Drunk, is the word you're looking for," she supplied. "I'm good. I just need to walk a bit. And I've got my stabbers, so I'm all good for reals!"

Another soft giggle escaped Merrill's lips as she slipped into her home. "Good night, Hawke."

"Night, Merrill!"

Turning on her heel, Poppy walked confidently across the alienage and up the steps. And as soon as she was out of sight of that merry little elf's possibly watchful eyes, she stumbled against a shadowed wall, sagging under the weight of all the lies she had told tonight. Lies she had told herself, as much as anyone.

She _was_ pleased to see Alex alive. Pleased, relieved, delighted. He was her twin, her big brother; she'd mourned him more deeply than she could possibly have imagined. But ... out of his shadow, even with Carver's death weighing on them all, Leandra had finally started to look at Poppy as something more than a disappointment. The eldest remaining Hawke child had _finally_ started to be worth more than her physical presentation, especially when it had been Poppy who was bringing home pay and food, Poppy who was keeping the templars off their back, Poppy who had taken on the burden of finding some way for them all to live in safety in this less-than-safe city. Even in the wake of Bethany's death, it had been Poppy who had reclaimed Leandra's childhood home, who had restored her mother to the comfort and convenience she had given up to be an apostate's wife more than twenty years ago. But as soon as Alex walked in through that door, none of that mattered anymore. Alex was home; _Alex_ would bring the family name a greater reputation. Alex would marry whoever Leandra told him to, would give her grandchildren, would make a name for himself as a noble in this city. In Leandra's eyes, Poppy was a wasted opportunity, a daughter who refused to be married off for prestige, who chose to mix with unpalatable people. Poppy had let her younger siblings die. Poppy was the sole reason her mother only had Alex left.

But tonight she had left them to celebrate his return together, waving away her brother's concern with a smile, the lie on her lips that she had a prior engagement. Fresh lies had come out when she'd reached the Hanged Man - that she had _wanted_ to be left out of the family reunion for their sake, that she'd be welcomed back with open arms when she got home. That she was nothing but delighted to have her twin home, safe and well. She was fairly sure Isabela and Varric had seen through her, perhaps even Fenris, and in self-defense against the thought of their questions, had spent the night mainly with Merrill, avoiding any opportunity for those questions to arise. And now she was alone, in Lowtown, drunk and armed, and aware of just how vulnerable she was in this state. And she didn't care. That recklessness that had blossomed after Bethany's death had her in its firm grip once again.

She pushed out of her chosen shadow and began to walk, taking the longer way past the steps down to the docks before turning to navigate the rising and falling levels that would guide her to Hightown. At least, that was the theory. She'd forgotten that walking up stairs while tipsy was not as easy as it seemed. It took four goes to get up the steps from the foundries to the Hanged Man - each time she made it up two steps, she staggered back three. In the end, she had to lean on the wall, idly aware that she was not looking like the worst person to pick a fight with right now.

And speaking of picking fights ... _what_ was Knight-Captain Cullen doing in the tavern this evening? She felt herself bristle just at the thought. It was _her_ place, her place to be with _her_ friends and away from the troubles just being Hawke brought down on her head. But oh, no, he couldn't let her have just one place where she didn't have to worry about remembering the feel of him inside her, or the way his lips quirked just so when he smiled, or how the flash of anger in his eyes made her want to throw him down and do sinful things to him. He had to be there, disapproving over his one mug of ale at every shot of rum she knocked back while trying to ignore him. Him with his warm body, and kissable lips, and eager desire,and ... and what did he have to disapprove of, anyway? _He_ wasn't the one who'd been left unsatisfied at their last encounter. He'd _got_ what he wanted, what he needed in that moment.

Just thinking about it brought back the frustrated arousal she'd been battling ever since that day out on the Wounded Coast. Taking matters into her own hands didn't help at all. What she needed was a good hard fuck, but could she get one? Could she bollocks. No, she was _Hawke_. Flirting with anyone in front of her friends made for them glaring over her shoulder and intimidating whoever it was. Flirting when she was on her own was all but impossible, because she was almost _never_ alone when she was out and about. She doubted any of the random brigands she might come across tonight would be up for a little night delight over bleeding her dry in every sense.

She growled to herself as she stumbled to a halt in front of the shuttered stalls below the entrance to the tavern. This was a prime ambush site, she thought vaguely, one hand groping along the wall beside her as she kept on her way. Usually people were dropping out of the sky by now. Or sending their dogs to bite her. Rogue had stayed home tonight, too. Even the dog preferred Alex to her.

The firm stone under her hand suddenly wasn't there anymore, her body lurching to the left as her weight plunged into the gap of an open doorway. Her palm impacted with warm leather, her elbow buckling as she staggered; strong hands caught her waist as she began to fall. Poppy blinked, looking up into the frowning scowl of Knight-Captain Cullen.

"Oh, _great_ ," she groaned, pushing away. "Someone else who doesn't like me. You should go and party with my family, you'd _love_ them."

His hand curled about her upper arm, denying her the escape she was attempting. He might have been a couple of years her junior, have barely three inches on her in height, but he was still stronger than she was. Even sober, she'd have a hard time breaking that grip.

"Mistress Hawke," he began, but she wasn't in any mood to listen to anyone calling her that tonight.

"Nope, you don't get to call me that," she told him, tugging uselessly on her arm in his grip. "No one calls me that. I'm nobody's mistress, more's the pity."

The confusion on his face suddenly struck her as hilarious as he tried to follow her tipsy line of thought. Giggles bubbled up from her throat, escaping in a peal of laughter that buckled her knees and tipped her against his chest, muffling the sound against the leather jerkin he wore in place of his habitual breastplate. His arms wrapped about her waist to keep her upright, twisting to lean her against the door in the alcove where he'd been lurking.

But laughter didn't last. She was laughing more at herself than anything, and the smile was quick to fade in the face of her self-perceived truth. The words ... well, she couldn't have stopped them tonight, even if she'd tried.

"You really _don't_ like me, do you?" she heard herself say plaintively. "Why should you? My own mother doesn't even like me. I'm just, you know, here. I do things for everyone else, and they like the things I do, just not me. Even you - you liked what I did with you. I _know_ you did, because of, you know, the other thing you did with me, but what did I get out of it? What do I ever get out of it? There's Poppy, take what you can and give her a kick while you're at it."

"Hawke -"

"My _name_ is _Poppy_ ," she snapped, self-pity turning to anger with ease as she raised her hand to push at him. "Not that anyone cares. Hawke's the important one. Well, hooray, there's another Hawke in town. Go and hump him if you're that eager for a quickie."

"I'm not -" Cullen sighed heavily, leaning his body against hers just to hold her still. "Stay still, woman! I am not here to ..."

He trailed off. Despite her snapping anger, Poppy had suddenly realized that the warm male body she had been craving for quite some time was pressed against her own. The arm that he still held in his grip had turned; the hand had wriggled its way down between them to cup palm and fingers about the hardening evidence that he was not as immune to her as he was trying to pretend. Another strangled sigh escaped his lips as he lowered his head, unconsciously pressing into her touch for a long moment. Then he seemed to remember himself, trying to draw back despite the tight clench of her fingers into the folds of his jerkin.

"Let me," she whispered, ashamed of the pleading in her voice. "Please? Let me do something that _means_ something for someone who never asked for it?"

"I didn't ... didn't come here tonight for you to ..." He broke off with another strangled groan as her fingers rippled against him, reaching down to capture her wrist and pull her wickedly tempting touch away. "Hawke ... Poppy ... stop."

She mewled in disappointment, scowling even as she fought to free her hands. If he didn't want this, then why was he still holding her? Why not just release her into the wild to get beaten up by the nearest thug?

"What _did_ you come for, then?" she demanded. "Just to scowl at me all night and follow me home, like I'm some, some _child_ who needs protecting?"

Cullen's brow creased into a dark snarl for a moment as he shook her. "I came because I can't get you out of my mind," he snapped back at her. "Because I took something from you and ... I need to return it. I cannot control my own behavior around you - the least you can allow me is to correct my mistakes."

"Oh, _wonderful._ " Poppy rolled her eyes, scowling back at him. "Not only am I an embarrassment and source of shame, I'm a mistake too. Thank you. Thank you _so_ mu -"

Her complaint came to an abrupt end in a startled gasp as Cullen crowded in against her, his lips finding purchase on her throat, seeking and finding a very sensitive place she couldn't quite believe he'd remembered was there. It had been one night, a full month or more ago, and yet he'd gone straight for it, drawing those sinful lips of his directly over the sensitive curve beneath and behind her ear. And it wasn't just his lips that had gone for the kill, so to speak - his knee nudged between her own, his thigh pressing up to rub with teasing care at the sweet ache between her legs. Apparently the knight-captain didn't care for wasting time with self-deprecation.

"Shhh," he murmured against the lobe of her ear, sobriety lending him an edge as he drew her hands behind her back, catching both in just one of his own. "Let me ... may I ... look after you?"

The hand now free curled over her hip, down to her bottom, pulling her tighter against him as she moaned, only too ready to be roused by this man. Quite how he'd wiggled his way so deeply into her psyche was beyond her at this moment - and at this moment, she didn't much care. She could only hope that this time she was going to get more out of this than frustration and disappointment. His question poured through her mind like treacle molasses, slow to register through the sparking desire pooling with liquid heat between her thighs.

"I ... you ... you _want_ to?" she heard herself gasp, the sound stiffening in her throat as his grasping hand dipped between them to stroke against her aching core through layers of leather and linen.

"Tell me to stop," Cullen told her, the familiar sound of shame and anger at the edge of his tone, his hand stilling with palm and fingers cupped intimately close at the apex of her thighs. "If you wish it, Mistress Poppy, I will stop. I will never touch you again."

Her groan should have been answer enough - _would_ have been, had he any experience beyond what they had briefly shared just twice before. His head drew back, those intoxicating eyes of his flickering with concern, with what might almost have been fear. But what did he fear the most - the desire that urged him on to such intimacies, or that she might tell him to stop? In spite of the alcohol muddling her senses, Poppy glared into his eyes, lips begging to be kissed and knowing they would not.

"If you stop," she informed him, "you really _will_ never touch me again. Nor I you."

To her surprise, her threat brought a wash of relief over his youthful face, his lips quirking into a suddenly boyish grin, there and gone in less than a breath, stealing the air from her lungs with the unexpected realization that Cullen Rutherford was even more handsome than she had first thought. He had a smile that could stop a heart.

"As you wish."

He raised that teasing hand to his mouth, biting the leather of his glove to pull it free, tucking it swiftly into his belt. The warm, damp sweat of his palm tilted her neck once again, that sweetly sinful mouth resuming their slow exploration of her throat, retracing paths he had entertained only once yet remembered with such clarity. He palmed her breast through the supple protection of leather armor; she felt his grin against her throat as she bit down on a fresh groan, arching into that groping, grasping touch, inviting the inevitable bruises from unpracticed fingers just to _feel_. Then that hand descended, brushing aside the slats of hardened leather that formed the skirt of her armor, tugging loose the laces that held the flap of her shorts in place.

Poppy struggled for a moment, wrenching one hand free from the grasp of his hand at her back, needing to be able to hold onto him as his rough fingers dived past soft curls to stroke eagerly against the delicate slick that pooled between her legs. She flinched back from the over-eager touch, her yelp muffled by the press of his brow to her mouth as the jerking motion flattened her own arm between her back and the shadowed door painfully. To his credit, Cullen instantly stilled, drawing his hand back from her tender core as her fingers flexed about his forearm.

"Did I ... does it hurt?" he asked, confusion coloring his voice. "I didn't - Maker, I didn't mean to -"

"No, it's ... just be gentle, all right?" she whispered, still breathless in his grasp. "Don't grab so hard."

His embarrassment at his eagerness causing pain turned his face ruddy in the shadows, softening his grip on her wrist to let her find a more comfortable position as a frown of concentration painted his brow. He looked down at his hand, half-hidden in the folds of leather between her thighs, his touch now tentative but soft. His fingers passed over the throbbing bud of her clit, and _there_ was the shuddering he'd seen and felt just once before, proof without need of words that her guidance was what he should be listening to.

"Tell me what to do, Poppy," he begged, his voice a soft growl against her ear, though the words seemed reluctant to find her. "I-I want to ... to give you pleasure ..."

Her hand slithered out from behind her back, snaking up to curl against his jaw, drawing his gaze to hers with a tenderness she could not see in her own eyes. Letting him _see_ the passionate flame rising in her expression, overtaking her senses, with each circle of his fingers and thumb; watching the sweet wonder claim his own expression as he witnessed what gentle hands and a willingness to learn could accomplish for a woman he had formed such a physical attachment to. Still holding his eyes to hers, she let the hand that gripped his arm slide down, pushing her shorts down from her hips, rising to curl to his hand and guide his untutored fingers to where she needed him to touch her.

It was Cullen's voice that joined hers in a low groan as he felt her arousal wet his palm, the heat and clench of her enclosing his fingers as she whimpered in the grip of quivering pleasure that slowly began its inexorably rise, coiling tighter and tighter as she stuttered out instruction to the young man who held her tight in the shadows. She could feel the burgeoning hardness of his own ardor against her thigh, the tension in the way he lowered his face to her neck, muffling his frustration at her writhing ascent at his touch in the curve of her throat. Yet if she moved to touch him, he prevented it; if she shifted in any way that seemed designed to ease his desire, he denied her. He held her pressed back in the deeper shadow of the public doorway, long fingers rippling, palm grinding beneath her guidance, absorbing every change in her expression, every soft gasp and whimper that escaped her throat, teasing her higher, tighter, until that blissful moment when everything seemed to shatter from the inside out.

She didn't see the amazement on his face as she fell apart in his arms; didn't witness the moment of pride that he had finally given her something he should have attempted weeks before; didn't have any awareness of the way he drew her face to his shoulder to muffle her quiet cry in the night as she trembled against him in breathless ecstasy. He seemed to know when to stop, or perhaps she had stopped him unconsciously, but there was no further stimulation to turn pleasure to pain from the inexperienced lover who kept her from sagging to the ground in the wake of that stunning encounter.

Her chest heaving, Poppy forced her eyes to open, to focus on the flushed face that studied her from so short a distance, the ever-present banked anger in those sweet-whiskey eyes cloaked with wonder and perhaps a little concern.

"Mistress? A-are you ... well?"

Drawing in a long, shaking breath, Poppy's lips curved in a deeply satisfied smile. "More than well," she promised him in a low tone. "For all that I've just been debauched by a templar in a public street."

She probably shouldn't have said that, but the blush that rose was so endearing to watch. Cullen cleared his throat awkwardly, glancing away, his left hand rising to rub at his neck for a brief moment. She laughed softly, brushing the pad of her thumb over his lips before he could find words to berate her for teasing him, her mood much improved just by a single demonstration that someone cared enough to give without taking, even if he was never going to admit to it.

"But what about you?" she asked softly, letting her hand fall between them once more.

He flinched back from her offered touch, shaking his head. "No, I ..." Hesitation marred his mouth as he struggled to find the right words. "I ... it was not a debt, but ... I wanted to give you what-what you gave me," he managed finally, very much the young man and not the knight-captain in those brief seconds. "Your face ... you were so hurt by my selfishness, yet you said nothing. I ... I did not want to see that betrayal in your eyes again."

Something inside Poppy melted. Some icy barrier she'd been holding up, some reminder that he was a _templar_ , that his kind had hunted her father and sister all their lives, seemed to crack at this honest, shy confession from a man who owed her nothing. And somewhere in the back of her thoughts, behind the last vestige of her drunkenness, a quiet realization buried itself in every nerve she bore. _It would be so easy to love this man, for all his flaws._

She patted his chest gently, drawing herself straight to settle smalls and shorts secure at her hips once again, ignoring the awkward stickiness between her legs they had created together. Cullen was staring at his hand, at the glimmer of her arousal left on his skin as it caught the torchlight. He glanced at her awkwardly, seemingly at a loss as to what he should do about that.

"No cloth?" she asked as innocently as she could manage, given that he had just seen and felt her at the most vulnerably expressive she could be, let alone in a public place.

"Ah ... I confess, I do not believe I thought this through," he admitted in embarrassment. "Is there a water fountain somewhere near ..."

His voice failed him as she took his right wrist in her grasp, raising his hand to her mouth. Blue eyes locked with brown, pinning him in place with nothing stronger than her own gaze as her tongue snaked out to clean herself from his skin. The sound that escaped his throat was fascinating; a shy, strangled groan of a whimper that scratched past his lips, the darkness of his pupils expanding until there was little brown to be seen in eyes turned stormy with unexpectedly fierce desire. But that anger was still there, that banked rage that underpinned everything he did or said giving him an edge when it came to forcing that desire aside. He tugged his hand from hers, dragging his gaze away from her eyes, the sweep of her tongue over her lips, stepping back as though raising a shield of his own between them.

"I will escort you back to Hightown, if I may, Mistress Hawke." The Knight-Captain was back; it seemed that her bold touch had been a tease too far for his tempted sensibilities to take. "A lady should not walk these streets alone after dark."

"It's probably a good thing that I'm not a lady, then," Poppy reminded him, a certain sense of sleepiness beginning to nudge at her senses now the alcohol seemed to have been mostly purged from her system, thanks to his insistence on repaying a kindness she'd only given him because she could not seem to control this attraction that had sparked between them. She laughed as he opened his mouth to object. "Like I said, you should spend time with my mother. I have a feeling you would get along tremendously. Well, come along if you're coming, Knight-Captain. I'm not going to stop you."

And she didn't, even if it did take him a minute to catch up with her as she mounted the steps to Hightown. If she was very lucky, no one she knew would have seen or heard what had happened between them. If she wasn't that lucky, she was fairly sure Varric would make sure she knew about it. Nothing like having Kirkwall gossip central for your best friend to keep you informed. But ... someone had given her something without expecting anything in return. In the City of Chains, in an angry heart that did not seem to know much rest, she'd found unexpected kindness.

That was more than enough to make her smile.


	3. Chapter 3

_**9:32 Dragon, Late Justinian** _

After three bells, the night was allowed in to envelop the courtyard of the Gallows in peace and stillness. Well, stillness, anyway. Peace was in short supply in the Gallows, though today had been a good day. No punishments meted out, only a few harsh words shared between Knight-Commander and First Enchanter. The mages were restless, made more so by the addition of their fellows from Starkhaven ...

Knight-Captain Cullen's expression formed a scowl in the darkness as he patrolled the courtyard alone. Ser Karras had been questioned following the recapture of the escaped mages. His testimony had drawn forth that he had been convinced of the mages' deaths and their leader's escape by a templar from Ferelden named Hawke. His description had matched that belonging to a Hawke in this very city - a Hawke Cullen was ashamed to admit he had very nearly perjured himself to protect from the repercussions of that deception. He could not quite put his finger on why he had done it. Only that, standing before Meredith and her fury, he had remembered the sadness that was so dominant in Poppy's eyes, and the way she did not distinguish between people if they needed her help. He did not want to see that unexpected force for good in Kirkwall be extinguished simply because it took a little longer to round up escaped mages than it might have done without her interference. And he was purposely not looking any closer at his own thoughts on the matter.

Maker, just thinking about her was enough to fire his blood. It was a different feeling to the tortures he had endured in Kinloch Hold, where desire had been stirred in him and used as a weapon to break him apart, though it carried the shame of his weakness each time he felt himself stir. His mind shuddered away from lingering on those memories. But there was a softness in the craving he felt for Poppy - and he found himself referring to her even in thought as _Poppy_ , knowing now how nameless she had found herself in the City of Chains - a softness that did not demand more than it was willing to give in return. A softness that did not even make demands when she was left unsatisfied, as he had left her on the Wounded Coast. He still felt that prickle of guilt for his selfish action that day, despite the mingling prickle of pride for the way he had finally found an opportunity to repay her for her patience with him. He would not soon forget watching her face as she came apart at his touch, the wonder and selfish delight in knowing that her moment of pleasure had been brought about by _his_ touch.

Nor had it simply been one or two encounters. It was becoming a pattern, one in which only the presence of they two alone was the necessary component. He should have said no. He should have denied allowing it to happen again. Yet there was something about her, something about him when he was with her, that drove him on, seeking that strangely impersonal intimacy only she had ever truly offered. There were dark alleyways on the Docks and in Lowtown that he could not pass without a flush of shame and secretive memory darkening his face, places where they had shared feverish lust in enforced silence before parting ways in some attempt to pretend it had not happened. Yet it had happened, and each time simply strengthened his need to seek her out, despite the danger they courted. Should they be caught, recognized, it was certain that he would lose his position. Given her associates, dallying with him might even cost Poppy her life.

The sound of voices on the dock outside the courtyard snatched at his attention, the clash of weapons in a fight making itself known. Cullen sighed, pulled from his more pleasant thoughts to march toward the dock gates. The various gangs and thuggish organizations in this city were forever battling for territory and advantage, though it was unusual for them to dare risk a fight this close to the Gallows. It seemed over quickly enough, though, the shadows of bodies left by the the violence all that remained to say anything had happened at all. He would have to send someone out to deal with those, he noted ... and just as he turned, a flicker of something caught the corner of his eye.

Ah, yes. That illusion of the rogue's art that was stealth in shadows. So they had left someone behind to deal with any templar that might seek to intervene, had they? His mouth set in a firm line, his hand reaching back to pull the shield from his shoulders as he focused his gaze firmly on the patch of darkness that was not as innocuous as it seemed.

"Cullen, don't! ... It's me."

The voice was a pained gasp that shocked him just to hear. He knew the voice, had heard it raised in anger and ecstasy, but never in pain. As he watched, the stealthed shadow slumped into plain view, leaning heavily against the wall, one hand pressed hard to a bleeding wound in her side. Poppy.

"Mistress Hawke - Poppy - what ... what happened?"

A hank of her short hair obscured the paleness of her face in the torchlight, matted with blood that stained her skin as she looked up at him from her lean.

"I don't suppose you'd accept that I tripped and fell?" she asked, and despite himself, Cullen felt a flicker of amusement at her inappropriate attempt to protect those he assumed she had been out with. She hissed, pressing her hand tighter into her side. "Trouble's gone," she assured him with a shake of her head. "Alex and Varric ... lead them off. I just ... just have to get to the nearest safe house ... no potions left ..."

"Which is where?" the knight-captain demanded, stepping forward into the shadow she had been hidden in to draw her hanging arm over his shoulders, to keep her from falling down where she stood.

She paused, bloodied fingers scrabbling for purchase on the smooth metal of his pauldron. "Alienage ... I think. Or the Hanged ... Hanged Man."

Cullen's scowl etched itself deeper on his face. Lowtown ... that was too far for her to go, especially alone and injured. The gangs in this city were making a resurgence, he knew, but was it possible that Hawke and her band of misfit companions had been responsible for their suppression in the first place? Had she truly managed to fit _that_ into the few months in which she had made her name and fortune as well? In which case, allowing Poppy to travel alone to Lowtown while injured was simply asking for her to be killed before she ever reached her safe houses. But he could not leave the Gallows until four bells, when his duty shift was done.

"No," he insisted, drawing an armored arm about her back, ignoring her quiet moan of pain in favor of pulling her along with him. "Let me at least furnish you with a potion or poultice. You should not be traversing the streets so obviously injured."

"But ... the knight-commander ..."

Cullen hesitated in voice only, already steering her toward the barracks. "She does not need to know," he told her, though he knew he would have to atone for this sin of deception in his own time. "No one needs to know."

Sagging against him as he pulled her along, Poppy let out a quiet huff of pained laughter. "If anyone sees me, you'll get in trouble," she warned.

Despite the situation, Cullen felt an odd tug in his chest, something warm blossoming at the realization that this remarkable woman was actually worrying about the consequences for _him_ , when _she_ was the one bleeding and barely able to hold herself upright. He hadn't felt that since ... His mind reeled back from those memories. Kinloch was not a place he visited by choice, even in dreams. Even the days before the nightmares came.

"Relations are not against the rule," he muttered to her, pausing to open the door that led into the templar barracks. Thankfully, as knight-captain, he had a private room. "Let them make their assumptions."

"Not really an assumption ... is it?"

He flushed, scowling as he pulled her to his own doorway and through, into the reassuring spartan darkness that was his only privacy. There was a thump as he let her drop to the bed, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath as she landed. Fumbling for the tinderbox, he lit the candle by the window, the flickering illumination darkening the shadows even as it gave him a better light to see her by. The blood that covered her fingers was stark against her pale skin, though the wound did not seem so bad now as it had out there in the moonlight. Her armor seemed barely scratched at all, the blood merely highlighting a fatal weakness her enemy had managed to exploit - namely that there were gaps that exposed vulnerable flesh to a clever blade. She looked far too pale for his liking, however.

"Here."

Cullen reached out to help her undo the straps of her armor, gently lifting the leather breast and back plates over her head as she hissed softly in pain. The summer heat being what it was, there was no shirt beneath; just the plain practicality of her breastband, and the toned expanse of her torso, marred by scars both livid and faded, and the neat puncture of the wound that was currently giving her all the trouble. It was small, barely more than a hole in her side, and thankfully not as deep as he had originally feared.

Her hand covered his as he reached for a cloth. "Don't you have duties?"

He hesitated, torn between tending to her and doing as he was expected to. It was only an hour ... but he was the knight-captain. He had to set an example. Running off to hide a woman in his room when he was supposed to be on duty was not the example he wanted to set. But ... Poppy was injured. For the first time since he had noticed that pretty elven mage in Kinloch, he felt torn between duty and desire. Worse was the realization that duty had gone completely out of his mind at the sight of her injury. She was not a mage, no, but she did have sympathies there; she was known to associate with apostates hiding in the city. But she was _Poppy_. To his shame, his zeal for justice enacted on all mages paled unexpectedly in his desire for her not to die.

"Cullen?"

His head snapped up, eyes finding hers in the gloom. She was watching him in concern.

"I can clean myself up," she promised him. "I'll be out of here before you even get back. You won't need to worry about being caught."

"No." Cullen shook his head, turning to open a drawer and produce a pair of bottles. "Take the healing potion, use the other as a medium for cleaning the wound. I have to sign off my shift, but ..." For the briefest moment, he hesitated, a inner battle between duty to the templars and concern for her well-being fought behind his eyes. "Stay until I get back," he insisted. "I will walk you to the Hanged Man. Even clean and healed, you will be weak until you sleep it off."

"I am not a child, knight-captain," she objected, a frown furrowing her pale brow as she took the cloth from his hand. "I can handle myself."

"So well that you allowed your companions to abandon you at the dockside of the Gallows, without any clear plan as to how you were going to get back to Lowtown without dying at the end of an opportunistic blade," he retorted, stung by her lack of gratitude.

"I'm not the one who just smuggled a woman into his bedroom, knowing perfectly well that even if it isn't against the rules, Meredith will still find a reason to punish you for it!" Poppy flared, thankfully keeping her voice down despite the temper showing through.

Cullen's jaw set in a flare of his own anger - anger that was tempered by the way she chose to express herself. She was the one bleeding, and yet her concern was for _him_. How had this woman even survived her first year in Kirkwall, much less risen to a position of minor influence and wealth? Her lack of personal survival instinct was astonishing.

"Stay here," was all he said in reply, stern enough that she sighed in reluctant obedience.

He didn't trust her to do it, though. It was rare for him to lock his own door, but tonight, he did just that, despite knowing she could probably pick it with ease. But perhaps the effort that would entail would be too much for her to bother with, should she be finished with her self-care before he returned.

The remaining half hour of his duty turn was interminable, plagued with fears of returning to find his door forced open, Poppy under arrest or dead, the Knight-Commander looming in his private quarters as she stripped him of his rank and position and tossed him to the uncaring mercies of a city he did not trust. The hushed laughter of recruits rising eagerly for their pre-dawn turn at patrolling the Gallows set his teeth on edge, the stress of having his most personal secret hidden right there in the confines of the place he reluctantly called home wearing on his ability to be as gracious a commanding officer as he would like to be. He knew he was young to hold this position; knew, too, that it was only his because the Knight-Commander saw in his experiences something similar to her own. And for all Poppy's insistence, he knew to his bones that mages were not beings that could be trusted. Those who protected mages could not be trusted. Yet he trusted _her_ , and that was where his confusion lay.

How could a good woman, a woman who went out of her way to protect and aid anyone who needed her, be so blind to the dangers of magic? She had lived as the sister of an apostate for much of her life, she must have seen the damage magic could do. And yet she had gone out of her way to take that boy Thrask had been seeking out of their reach, while at the same time investigating the demons within the templars' own ranks. It was beyond him how she could be so even-handed, so understanding toward both sides of the argument, when clearly the only way to protect the world was to keep the mages under close guard. He did not understand her. What was more than a little concerning was that quiet _wish_ to understand her, to see the argument from her perspective. Thank the Maker she was no mage, that was all he could think. No matter how temptingly she presented herself, he would have her in the Gallows in an instant if she displayed even a spark of innate magic.

What made that knowledge so uncomfortable was the haunting suspicion that, if she _did_ prove to be a mage and show her hand before him ... he did not think she would fight him when he arrested her. And despite his vehement belief that all mages should be behind the walls of the Circle ... he did not think Poppy Hawke deserved to be imprisoned.

But this was just conjecture. She was not a mage, only a sympathizer. She was a sensible woman. He felt certain she could be reasoned with, helped to see that his viewpoint was the only safe way to view mages and magic in general. The only way to protect her against the inevitability of betrayal by those mages she called friend. Confident that he had made the wise decision, he handed the next shift over, making his way back to his locked door and the injured woman he had hidden away.

Only to find the room behind the locked door empty. The bed was remade, the bloodied cloth had been burned, the candle extinguished. There was nothing to say she had ever even been there, but for the faintest trace of honeysuckle in the air. The faintest smell of summer in Ferelden that clung to her wherever she went.

Cullen felt himself huff with the barest suggestion of laughter, sinking down onto the bed with a low sigh. He should have known she would slip away; her talents lay in precision and secrecy, a rogue to her core, despite her better nature. To lock the door behind her ... it was admirable, in its way. Annoying, certainly, and he would check to be certain she arrived safely back home tomorrow before he took up his duties again, but he also understood why she had disobeyed. How long had it been since anyone cared enough about him to take such a risk with their own life rather than allow him to risk his position for them? How long had it been since he had allowed that someone else might care?

He couldn't say. Nor did he truly wish to examine the feeling.

It was enough to know that Poppy Hawke _cared._


	4. Chapter 4

_**9:32 Dragon, August** _

_Listen, sweet thing. I'm all for scratching that itch when the mood takes you, but doing it in back alleys and behind closed stalls is asking for trouble. So here's what we're going to do ..._

Poppy could feel herself blushing still, hours after that excruciating conversation with Isabela. She hadn't realized that her admittedly reckless liaisons with a certain knight-captain had come to the attention of her companions, though she supposed she should be grateful that it was Isabela and not, say, Anders that had noticed. What made it more embarrassing was that Isabela was right. She _didn't_ want to stop seeing Cullen; _he_ didn't seem to want to stop seeing her. But the way they had been going about it put him in definite danger. All it would take was one informant to the Knight-Commander, and he would lose everything he had worked so hard to gain; everything he defined himself by. She didn't want to be responsible for that. She wasn't so worried about her own reputation; after all, she was just a Fereldan refugee who got lucky and got rich. No one would bat an eye, apart from the inevitable snickering behind her back. But Cullen stood to lose everything, and still took the risks when they presented themselves.

_There's an inn in the middle of Dockside, room 12 is paid up until the end of the year. I don't use it, but it's clean and just disreputable enough that no one's going to pay much attention to who else is using it. If this little attachment of yours goes on beyond the year, drop me the gold, and I'll pay it up for another year. That way, no one can track you to it at all._

It was a sound plan - which was more than could be said for most of Isabela's plans, to be fair - but Poppy had still agonized for hours over the note she had then had to send to the Gallows, together with a spare key for the room itself. And then, of course, the worrying. Would it be intercepted? Would he have the sense to open it in private? Would he even come? This was taking a step beyond the mere satiation of the senses; this was, in some way, formalizing their spur-of-the-moment trysts, denying them the chance to blame each meeting on a surge of irrefutable desire.

_Look, he's prime templar tottie, and you, my precious little nugget, need to get laid regularly, or you're going to explode. So do it safely, or I'll start following you around drawing attention to his sweet backside shining in the moonlight until you do._

So here they were, facing one another across the expanse of rag rug and swept floorboards. Poppy stood by the leaded window, no armor, no weapons, her arms wrapped at her own waist as she eyed Cullen warily. He, too, had come unarmored, though his sword was still at his waist, pausing to lock the door at his back before meeting her gaze. Not a word spoken for what felt like a painful eternity, awkward uncertainty coloring every last vestige of what little comfort they had in each other's presence.

She cast around for something to say.

"So ... no armor," she noted, gesturing uselessly toward him.

Cullen glanced down at his plain leather jerkin, the tips of his ears flushing red for a brief moment. "No, I thought ... Well, it is a little conspicuous," he offered. "Especially in a tavern called, uh, The Templar's Sheath."

Poppy winced as he reminded her of the inn's name. "Yes," she said slowly. "It might be Isabela's idea of a joke, but on the other hand, it might not. She did say she keeps rooms at inns all over the city."

"Ah, so this is ... this is not _your_ idea?" he asked, one hand rising to his neck to rub uncomfortably.

"Oh! Oh, no, it is my idea - that is, well, she suggested it, but I was the one who made the decision to ..." She trailed off, defeated before she'd even begun. "This was a bad idea, wasn't it."

Silence fell; a stretching, awkward silence full of words unsaid. Poppy avoided Cullen's gaze, flexing her fingers against her own sides as the wrap of her arms about her own waist grew tighter. What was she thinking? How was this supposed to go? Isabela had seemed very sure it would work, that he'd be on board with the idea of having somewhere private to go together but ... now he was here, it just felt uncomfortable and formal, and ... Ugh.

"If I may ask," Cullen ventured into the deafening silence, "what did you ... that is, why ... here?"

She drew in a deep breath, steeling herself as the words lined themselves up at the tip of her tongue. There was no going back now.

"We've been taking risks that, that you can't afford to take and if we - I mean, if _you_ \- want to, to continue with ..." Her hand waved expansively. "... with whatever this is we're doing, then I thought ... we should do it somewhere ..." She sighed, dropping her eyes to the rag rug between them. "Private."

More silence, interrupted only by the uneasy sound of Cullen clearing his throat as quietly as was physically possible, and the distant sounds of the taproom below them. The silence in here, however, was a little too much.

"Bad idea, I understand," she said, nodding as nerves and disappointment combined. "You don't want to risk being associated with a place like this, or with a person like me, I understand. You're the knight-captain, I'm just Fereldan trash and, and that makes perfect sense, so you should probably just, just go and I won't follow you."

"Poppy ..."

To make her point, she turned her back on him, squeezing her eyes shut. Why did this hurt so much? It was just sex between them - spur of the moment, badly timed sex that had taken place in most of the dark alleys of Lowtown and the Docks by now. All right, so his silence was a rejection, but she'd been rejected before. She'd get over it. Admittedly, rejection had never felt quite this crushingly awful before, but that was probably because he was the only person she'd been this intimate with since that dreadful fumble with Lukas Martlet in the windmill outside Lothering. She got too attached too quickly, and that was not his fault. It was her own problem, and she would handle it. Hell, Anders would probably scratch that itch for her without a second thought. Isabela might, too -

She stiffened suddenly as strong hands landed on her biceps, a broad chest warm at her back, hot breath damp against her ear.

"I did not say no," Cullen breathed, smoothing his palms down over her arms to band his own arms about her waist, pulling her back against his chest with rough possession in his touch. "Maker knows, I should deny this; I should step away from you and never look back."

"Then -"

 _"I will not,"_ he growled, the low vibration of his voice against her ear sending a shiver of something that was far from fear or cold rippling down her spine. "You haunt me, Poppy. You are a warm reality in a world that is too cold. And though each encounter may risk everything, it is a risk I am willing to take. If you are willing to take that risk fo- ... _with_ me."

She bit her lip, unable to deny the way she leaned back into the unexpected wrap of his arms, inviting the stimulating warmth of him enveloping her. "I'm not the one taking the greatest risk," she tried to argue, but Cullen was shaking his head.

"I know you are risking more than you admit in simply allowing yourself to be seen anywhere near me," he reminded her. "I know you consort with apostates who would likely not be easy on you for such an attachment. If you are ready to keep taking that risk, Poppy, it would be an honor to continue our ... liaisons together."

There was no way he didn't feel the lessening of her tension, the easy softness that returned to her limbs as she released a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding. No, it wasn't the declaration she secretly desired, but it was a start. He didn't want to stop. More than that, the risk their association posed to him, the shame he felt at his own desire for her ... they weren't enough to overrule that wish in him.

"Maker's breath," he breathed against her ear, his hands tentatively slipping from her waist, one to press her back against him, the other to gently cup the small swell of her breast through her shirt as her own breath hitched in her throat. "I _want_ you. I _always_ want you."

"I- "

Her answer was broken off as a callused thumb and forefinger found the press of her nipple through the layer of her shirt, pinching softly just to hear her breath catch, to feel her body ripple with the shared tension that delighted the senses, to see her skin flush rosy. Their hurried liaisons in dark alleys had not prepared either of them for the intensity of being alone together, _truly_ alone, yet it seemed Cullen was the better able to take advantage of that fact. Poppy was still reeling with relief at his response, bewitched by the gentle confidence of his hands, the heat of his breath at her neck. Her own hand rose, wanting to curl to his jaw, into the tight curls that adorned his head ... but he caught her wrist before she could make contact, suddenly still at her back, the softness gone from his touch.

"What is it?"

It was Cullen's turn to hesitate over his words, turning his face against the wayward bob of her hair for a long moment even as he held her in place, his fingers flexing almost painfully about her wrist. Newly alert, despite the smouldering promise of desire bubbling beneath the surface, she waited, offering no resistance to his grasp, feeling his shudder at her back for one long, awful moment. When, at last, he lifted his face from her hair, she felt him shudder again, and knew it for a memory of something that she should not pry into.

"I- ..."

Cullen cleared his throat, sounding very young at her back. And he _was_ young, only just twenty years old, and she was his first lover, she was certain of that. To be perfectly honest, he was the first true lover _she_ had enjoyed more than once, but she wasn't going to admit that. Not yet, anyway.

"I don't ... like to be touched," he said finally, the words coming as though from very far away, dimly shaken with some pain from the past. "Please, I do not wish to ... don't make me tell you ..."

 _Ah._ So there _was_ some awful tragedy he had endured. Someone had hurt him, she guessed, perhaps even tortured him. Had it been a mage? Was that why he had been sent here from Ferelden, to the clutches of a mage-hating sadist and her increasing regime of terror in the Gallows? Was that why he did not believe mages to be _people_ at all?

"It's all right," she murmured to him, tasting the bitterness of soft disappointment on her tongue even as she said it. She couldn't touch him, not without doing him some harm in his own mind. How could she possibly _be_ his lover in such a circumstance? "I won't. I won't do anything you don't want me to ..."

The relief she felt in his stance stung, even as he kissed the palm of her hand, still held in his grasp.

"Forgive me, but ... thank you."

Even his thanks hurt her heart, for how could she share the intimacy she felt with him without touch? How could she even kiss him without him pulling away, fearful of what a single kiss might then imply she might do? But ... she didn't want to pull away herself. Whatever this was between them, it had saved her life more than once. It had given him something to cling to in the midst of his prejudices and troubles. _He_ didn't want to stop this. And perhaps, over time, he might learn to appreciate a lover's touch - a _loving_ touch, though she refused to examine those troubled feelings that rose when she thought of him. If she could give him nothing else, perhaps a safe place in which to learn how to be touched without fear would be worth the difficulties in reaching that plateau.

A faint smile touched her lips as he warmed to her again, his fears assuaged by his trust in her word, lips brushing her neck as the laces of her shirt came loose under his hopeful, impatient hands. There were ways to show affection without touch; they would learn them together. And one day, perhaps, he would _ask_ for her touch.

That was a dream worth hoping for.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning - this chapter contains mentions of past torture and trauma, as well as a strong implication of sexual abuse/assault.

* * *

 

 

_**9:32 Dragon, Kingsway** _

Curves to entice, _her_ face inviting him, hands that covered his skin, touching, tearing from him a shameful pleasure he did not wish to share, not with demons, not with _her_ , laughter that pierced the confines of his mind, voices that knew his most guarded secrets ...

Cullen woke with a sharp start, eyes snapping open to dart about the darkened room in panic. The demons were gone. The nightmare was over. But still that fear, that shame, that horror remained. He breathed fast, each breath shallow and painful, the cooling cling of night-sweat gritty on his skin beneath the crumpled hang of his shirt. Eyes bright with memory-induced panic flitted back and forth, seeking out the horrors that had haunted his dreams and finding ... nothing. Just the dim shadows of the inn room, and the soft shape of Poppy, lying close beside him. She was still sleeping, her bare skin warm in slumber, the tangled sheet draped at her waist. She was a beautiful sight, a woman truly of this world, of reality, who had somehow convinced him to sleep at her side, despite the monsters the Fade drew to him.

 _Just a dream._ The relief made him shake, releasing the tension that had risen as he slept, as he relived the tortures that had so changed him not so very long ago. No, not long at all - barely more than two years had passed since that terrible time at Kinloch Hold, when he had come face to face with the true terror of what mages could become. So little time to come to terms with what he had suffered, nothing more than a play-thing for blood-mages and demons to taunt and shame, digging into his mind until there was nothing left he could hold sacred from them. And Tamyr Surana, the elven apprentice he had wasted so many innocent fantasies on, had been caught up in their schemes.

He shook his head sharply, pushing himself to sit up as he fought to banish those thoughts, those memories, from his troubled mind. It was his fault she had died that way. His back to his sleeping companion, he dropped his head into his hands, silently begging that delicate, accusing face to leave him be. If he had guarded his mind better, if he had not been so weak ... the demons would have killed her cleanly and been done with it. And it shamed him that, of all the horrors he had seen and felt, of all the deaths that should haunt him from that harrowing experience, it was _hers_ that weighed so heavily on his conscience. If only he had thought then as he did now; if only he could have seen her as less than a person ... she might, _might_ have survived long enough for Demelza Tabris to arrive and save them all.

Now there was a name etched into his mind. The Hero of Ferelden, a tiny redheaded rogue of an elf with more anger in her little finger than he could muster in his entire form, who had hated him at first sight. No wonder she had survived to end the Blight. She had not been gentle with him when he had finally been released and, if he was honest with himself, gentle would only have made him angrier. She'd stood between his bared blade and the surviving mages, and dared him to test his anger against hers. And despite his fury, his fear, his desire to revenge himself against every mage that had ever lived for what he had seen and felt in those terrible days, he had stepped down.

That had only been the first time she had stood between his anger and the mages under his care, though he had never seen her again. But in Kinloch, during the rebuilding, when he found himself inclined to lash out at those mages who had survived with him ... he would find himself remembering a furious little elven rogue who held his death in her eyes, standing guard over the people he had taken a vow to protect. Protecting them from _him_. It was that, ultimately, which lead to him asking Knight-Commander Greagoir for help, and that in turn had brought him here, to Kirkwall.

Yet even here he wasn't free from the specter of Demelza Tabris, warning him not to go too far. The image of her intervened when his anger rose at the mages, when he saw and heard of other templars abusing their position as guardians. He knew it was the lyrium talking - or rather, the _hunger_ for lyrium - for such visions only came in the hours before a fresh philter was to be taken. Withdrawal from the lyrium that gave them the means to guard against magic also plagued templars with headaches, nausea, forgetfulness, paranoia, even hallucinations. But, in some unknown way, he was glad to have a living being as his own personal lyrium-ghost, someone he knew would hunt him down and end him if word reached her of any excess of cruelty in his own manner. If he could trust anyone to put him down before he did more harm with his fearful anger, it was the Hero of Ferelden, whom he was sure never forgot a face.

Sat on the edge of the bed, he fought with his memories, shuddering as the remembrance of pain and fear slowly began to fade. Behind him, he heard Poppy sigh, felt the bed shift as she stirred.

"Cullen?"

His head rose imperceptibly from his hands, the only indication that he had heard her at all. He felt the bed shift once again as she sat up ... and stiffened as her hand laid itself gently against his back. He did not like to be touched; it brought back memories of demonic hands that forced his own body to betray his mind. Poppy had always respected that wish, always drawn back before he could lose himself to those feelings. But this time, she didn't pull away. Her hand was warm through the damp cling of his linen shirt, a soft presence that asked for nothing and gave everything, if only he could be brave enough to accept it. And to his surprise, Cullen found himself slowly relaxing into that touch, marveling at the trust he seemed to have in her that she would not go further than he could take.

"Bad dreams?" she asked, her voice almost tender in its soft inquiry.

He made a quiet sound of agreement, unwilling to discuss what haunted his sleep. She did not need to know the visions and horrors that crowded behind his eyes when the weight of the world grew too much. For all her own darkness, that was a step too far. He would not harm her with pain on his behalf, pain he should have learned by now to have set aside.

The bed dipped once again, and again he stiffened in mild shock, as her bare body pressed to the expanse of his back, separated skin from skin only by the thin sweat-damp barrier of linen he wore; as her arms wound gently about his waist to lay hands palm-flat against the thump of his heart through his chest. He felt her cheek find purchase beneath the fallen curve of his neck, listening to her breathing slowly in the darkness even as he struggled with an embrace he had never thought to expect from her.

Arms enveloping him, hands touching him ... but they were _her_ arms, _her_ hands, hands that had stopped themselves from touching him so many times before for fear of crossing the line he had drawn between them. Hands he had never allowed to return the caresses he lavished upon her whenever she gave him opportunity. Soft curves pressed to his back ... but they were _her_ curves, curves he knew without needing to look, needing to feel. Poppy was real, a living woman who had denied her own instincts in physical sharing just to keep him from spiraling away from her. She would stop, if he asked. She would never touch him again, if he asked.

And with that thought came an unexpected denial. Despite his fear, despite his anger and shock and shame that still rose whenever he thought on his attachment to her ... Cullen did not want her to let go. He wanted to feel her hands on him, just like this; this gentle, unlooked for embrace that comforted him more than words ever could. Another shudder racked his form as he breathed out, closing his eyes against the quiet scream in his own mind that declared such comforts to be unbecoming of a templar. He wasn't _just_ a templar. Here, with her, he wasn't a templar at all. He was a man - a young man, yes, a man with little true knowledge of the world they lived in beyond the cloistered view of the Chantry and the Gallows - but a man, nonetheless. And for all his faults, his flaws, his violent anger, she _chose_ to be here with him, to give him comfort he did not ask for, to dare that temper by offering her comfort in a manner he might well have pulled from in fear.

She offered no words, and he was glad of that. Words would have invited explanation, a sharing he was not ready to give, nor did he think he would ever be ready to give. This ... this touch was enough.

He leaned back into her embrace, his head rising from its sunken fall to tilt back against her own, his hands falling to wrap hers into his grasp and hold her in her wrap about him as those same shudders continued to ripple down his spine, through his limbs, the stiffness of his tension fading as he grew accustomed to the sensation of simply being held. How long had it been, he wondered. The last person to have held him with no thought of gain must have been Mia, his mother, his father; the family he had left behind as a young lad, eager to join the Templar Order and be a force for good in Thedas. Where had that young lad gone in all the madness that had followed? Broken, destroyed, torn apart with blood magic and pain until all that was left was a child screaming into the Void. Given work to keep him busy, sent to a place that encouraged his fearful, hateful view of those he had once considered innocents to protect against themselves. Yet here, in the embrace of a woman who might never have looked twice at him had he not intervened that fateful night, he could feel the suggestion of the idealistic child he had once been. Not gone, not forgotten; just hidden away, buried beneath layers of hate and fear, anger and pain. Still there, waiting to be found again. It was foolish to think he could ever go back to being that boy. But perhaps that boy was what he needed to fight against the memories that had almost destroyed him. And if a simple embrace was enough to show him that the child inside still lived ...

He felt Poppy's cheek leave his back, her breath warming his skin where neck met shoulders. Then the hot, dry press of her lips to that same spot - a kiss given freely, to comfort him still  further when he had only just begun to be easy in her embrace. Yet he didn't stiffen this time, didn't try to pull away. If anything, he relaxed further into her arms at this sign that she was not pulling back from him. The curve of her lips into a familiar smile felt strange against his neck, his head turning just a little toward her own as she settled her chin on his shoulder, her temple to his.

"Come back to bed," she murmured to him, her fingers squeezing gently in his grasp. "Let me hold you while you sleep. It might help."

Would it help? Would having real, warm arms about him stave off those remembered hands, with their cruel taunts and knowing touches? For just a moment, his mind rebelled against it, before the comfort of her embrace tightened imperceptibly. Reminding him that _she_ was real, that she was _there_. If anyone could defend him against nightmares, it was Poppy Hawke.

He nodded, still silent, not trusting his voice to the quiet stillness that encompassed them. As she drew back, he felt the unpleasant cooling of his sweat-soaked shirt against his skin, and hesitated. What harm could it do, really? He'd thus far failed to fully disrobe, holding onto some ethereal sense of having control while she was at her most vulnerable in his arms. He bore his own share of scars, true, but then, so did she. Indeed, while his scars were fading, she seemed to wear a new blemish on her skin each time he was allowed to see her so bared. She had never shown any shame in her scars, nor hidden the stories behind them.

He knew the tale of the darkspawn at Ostagar that had sliced open her thigh before her mabari took it down; the gang leader that had stabbed her in the back and been cleaved in two by the elven warrior in her group of friends; the demon that had possessed actual rock in the Deep Roads and scarred her left bicep with burned abrasions no amount of magic could wipe away. He knew the story behind the mabari tattooed on her right shoulder-blade, the sunburst and staff tattooed on the left - memories of her younger siblings, lost to the darkspawn and the Blight. He had heard the fondness in her voice when she described how the strange little five pointed star had come to be scarred on her inner left wrist, how her twin, Alex, had been so certain that it would somehow become a tattoo rather than a deep burn no amount of time or healing could keep from scarring her. Everything about her had a story she would tell, if only he asked for it; yet he had not once allowed her even to see his scars, much less touch them, _know_ them, as she had allowed him with her own.

As the bed shifted beneath him once more, betraying her settling back against the sheets, he raised hesitant hands to the back of his neck, grasping the damp linen to pull it up and over his head, tossing the shirt aside. That was enough, for now. The linen pants would stay - he was not so confident as he liked to seem, though proud of his physique, as most templars his own age were. They worked hard to maintain their strong, muscular form, though older templars seemed content to maintain just what they needed to bear the strain of arms and armor and appeared to lose no sleep over it. But Cullen _was_ proud of his form. It was the one thing in his life he had absolute control over, his fitness and appearance, and took pains to keep both without flaw. He knew he was attractive, but what kept him from looking over his shoulder was a moment's uncertainty ... would he be attractive to _her?_

The tips of her fingers skimmed the dip of his spine, her eyes no doubt following the flexing spasm of muscles as he tensed and relaxed at her touch.

"Come back to bed, Cullen," she murmured in the gloom. "It's getting cold without you."

For just a moment, he felt the urge to laugh, suppressing it out of habit more than desire. With one sentence, Poppy had given him an excuse to let her hold him, if an excuse was what he needed to follow through on her offer. He ran hotter than other men, it seemed, and of course skin to skin contact would warm a person better than any number of blankets.

"I don't need an excuse to lie beside you," he murmured back to her, raising his feet from the floor to slide legs back beneath the sheets and roll onto his side, his head finding the pillow as he faced her.

His hand was confident to smooth over the slender contour of her waist as he edged closer, more confident to touch her than she was to touch him. For the first time, he _wanted_ her touch, yet he needed some sense of control. Instinct gave it to him. His other arm curled beneath her neck, drawing her cheek to his chest as he found a comfortable sprawl on his back, his palm wrapped close to her shoulder, holding her against him as she rolled easily into the wrap of his arms. He reached down for the sheets, raising them over her bare skin as she tucked one arm close between them, linking her fingers with those over her shoulder, draping her other arm over the wide, toned plane of his chest. She let him catch that hand in his own, settle her palm over the quickened thump of his heartbeat as he struggled once again with the sensation of a touch that was real and warm, not demonic or cruel. There was no fuss, no ceremony, no drawing attention to his mild tension as he grew used to her closeness. She was simple there, fulfilling a need he had not even realized was his.

He felt her relax easily against him, felt the soft drape of her bent leg warm his thigh as her breathing began to settle once again. He envied her that easy drift toward sleep, how soon her body could wrap her in the peace of oblivious slumber. How uncalculated her risk was, to be naked, _vulnerable_ , in his arms without a second thought. Would he ever be able to take that risk without consciously being aware of it again?

But this ... holding her as she slept, feeling the steady beat of her heart, listening to the soft cadence of her breath ... this was more than he had dared to imagine in those broken moments of hasty dreaming he had found himself turning to since their attachment had become more than a passing fancy. This was _real_. And despite himself, despite the risk he took simply being here with her, it was a reality Cullen did not want to relinquish. Sleep might not find him again tonight, but by Andraste, it felt _good_ to lie here in the darkness, the sole caretaker of the slumbering woman at his side. Peaceful, in a way he had not known since before he had first taken lyrium. Surely this was worth a little shame when the dawing sun found them. Surely the Maker would smile on such an innocent pleasure.

Surely.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note - this may seem familiar to some of you. It's actually one of my Satinalia prompts, which fitted perfectly into the story with only minor adjustments. :)

The estate in Hightown was quiet - one of the few that was. Alex had gone down to The Hanged Man, no doubt to try and catch Isabela under some mistletoe and convince her that a kiss was a poor reward for being a handsome arsehole; Bodahn and Sandal were spending the evening with friends of their own; Leandra had been invited to a Satinalia feast by the Delauncets. She had attempted to convince Poppy to come with her, but the better known of her children in Kirkwall had cried off for the evening. Satinalia had always been her favorite holiday, but this was the first Satinalia without Bethany. Even six months on from that loss, it didn’t seem right to celebrate so soon. And with her in a melancholy mood, even Rogue, her mabari, had gone out, preferring to be her mother’s escort for the evening than to sit and brood with his mistress.

So here she was, sitting in the quiet and the dark, eating ragged chunks of dark Rivaini chocolate from a paper box as she stared into the flames, remembering better times. Satinalias with her whole family - with Father, Carver, Bethany, all present. Even though their familial tension had often been too much to bear, Satinalia had always been the one day of the year when everyone made an effort to get along. And now they were diminished. No Father, no Carver, no Bethany. Just Leandra, who needed to be the Amell Kirkwall remembered to cope with her losses; Gamlen, who barely tolerated his sister’s children; Alex, who would rather get drunk and get laid; and Poppy. A confused mess of reputation and hidden hurts, sitting alone in the dark because she couldn’t quite let the past go.

The knock on the main door resounded through the town house in echoing thuds, drawing her out of her mildly self-pitying thoughts with a curious frown. _Who would be calling here tonight? Everyone’s out._ Though clearly not _everyone_. It said a lot for Poppy’s character that even after almost two years in Kirkwall, she still considered herself unworthy of her friends’ time and effort. Still, it was someone at the door, and that required her to at least get up and open it, if only to tell them to sod off.

Tucking her robe about herself, she shuffled through the vestibule to the main door of the house, one dagger in hand. Opening the door, she peered out into the darkness … and felt her mouth drop open in startled surprise.

“You?”

Knight-Captain Cullen stood on her doorstep, divested of his official armor in favor of a simple coat over his tunic, though his sword remained strapped at his hip. He swallowed at the look on her face, glancing almost nervously to the darkened square behind him.

“Mistress Hawke, I, ah …” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I had thought to see you in The Hanged Man this evening.”

“I … I didn’t …” She didn’t have a reason for not being there, that was for sure. But did he have a reason to be here? Beyond their usual meetings, that was. Not that she would say no to scratching that itch tonight, but surely it was a risk for him to come to this house? That thought reminded her that they were standing on the doorstep. “Come inside.”

“Thank you.”

Stepping back, she drew the door fully open, sheathing the dagger in the harness that hung against the wall as Cullen stepped over the threshold. He seemed younger out of his templar plate and paraphernalia, looking his twenty-one years as he glanced about the darkened vestibule. Poppy bit her lip, uncomfortably reminded that she was the elder in their equation. She should have been able to keep herself from taking advantage of that, all those months ago. And each time since, too, but … she didn’t want to stop. She knew he didn't, either.

“You are alone?” he asked, a flicker of concern in his expression as she took his coat and gloves from him.

She nodded silently, drawing in a slow breath only to release it in a staggered rush. “Satinalia is a time for family,” she tried to explain herself. “Only … it doesn’t feel that way this year.”

Cullen’s hand twitched toward her, only to fall back to his side. Even now, having seen and touched and tasted every inch of her, he was wary of letting that familiarity show, even in this private setting.

“I am sorry to hear it,” he murmured, and to her amazement, she felt a tiny smile quirk at her lips, touched by the sincerity in his quiet condolence.

“It will not kill me to be alone for another Satinalia,” she assured him, hugging her arms about herself as she turned to lead the way back into the main room where the fire burned warm.

“You are not alone.”

Poppy’s footsteps stuttered as she came to a halt, twisting to face the handsome, nervous templar who stood so close behind her in the enveloping gloom. In other circumstances, in another life, perhaps … but that was wishful thinking. They gave one another an outlet for something neither one dared with anyone else. That was all. Even idle dreams of more was a foolish endeavor.

“Why are you here, Knight-Captain?” she asked, his title one more barrier to hold between them, to keep him at a distance in some strange attempt to protect the younger man who was so damaged he couldn’t even admit that mages were people.

“I …” Cullen hesitated, raising a hand to rub at his neck as he seemed to take a moment to gather his thoughts. “I was concerned for you. As I say, I went to The Hanged Man in the hope of seeing you well, yet you were not there.”

“Any of them could have told you where I was,” she pointed out softly. “Sometimes you need to be alone.”

“You are not made to be alone on such a night,” he told her, the words firm with confidence despite their softness. “On any night.”

Her smile was just a little bitter. “I am often alone, Cullen,” she replied. “Even in a crowd. That’s what happens when no one seems to know your name, yet everyone knows who you are.”

“That, I can understand.” He nodded, sighing a little heavily. “I … I did not come to … to take advantage of your …” His hand waved, not truly wanting to label her circumstance as loneliness. “Simply to be certain that you had not … tried again.”

“Ah …”

Poppy bit down on her lower lip, casting her gaze aside as a shamed flush rose on her cheeks. Of course that would be his concern. That attempt which had thrown them together somewhat in the first place - he, because he could not let someone do such a thing before his eyes and not intervene; she, because she had needed someone to stop her. She opened her mouth to assure him there was no danger of that … and felt the words stall in her throat as his fingers touched her cheek, drawing her eyes back to his. He stood close to her, his thumb drawing gently over her lower lip as she swayed toward him, that desire she hid so well flaring at his merest touch.

“You have chocolate on your …“

He gestured to his own mouth with absent fingers, his eyes focused on her lips. She swallowed, feeling her own gaze narrow down to the soft pillow of his mouth - a mouth she had felt on every part of herself, but her own. Because that was _too_ intimate, _too_ familiar, for what they had done together. And yet tonight … it was what she needed more than anything.

“Poppy, I …”

Yet his words were swallowed by the touch of her lips to his, the almost shy creep of her fingers to skim the line of his jaw as she gave into that urge to kiss; not simply because she wanted to, but for the more complicated reason below it. He had said her name. _Her_ name - not Hawke, not serah, not messere. He had proven with a single word that he knew who she was, that he cared enough to declare it, and the mouth that bore her name on his breath was the only mouth she wanted to kiss. Yet he was still, unmoving in answer to that kiss, and she drew back, shame rising in her eyes, in the flush on her cheeks.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t … I shouldn’t have …”

His thumb touched her lips once again, silencing her apologies as amber-dark eyes burned into hers with the fierce desire she knew he felt ashamed of yet was brave enough to confront, at least with her.

“May I?” he asked, his voice strangely hoarse as he stepped just a little closer, crowding her with the heat from his body; the broad, strong frame she had worshiped in her own way these past months when they could snatch a moment or two alone. “May I kiss you, Poppy?”

She stared at him, shocked, amazed, unexpectedly delighted to hear him ask for such a small thing. A small thing that suddenly meant the world to her; a warning that whatever was between them meant more to her than she had allowed herself to believe.

“Yes,” she whispered back to him, her nod a tiny thing that shook her head up and down too many times to count. “Maker’s breath, yes, Cullen. _Please.”_

It was not the kiss of her dreams. For all he had learned of physical intimacy from her in past months, this was the first real touch of lip to lip they had shared; it might even have been his first true kiss. He was tentative, shy, encouraged by the way she rose onto her toes, curled her fingers through the coils of his hair. Encouraged too far, perhaps, for his response was too hard for comfort, too hungry to contain - a messy, almost painful press that nonetheless she welcomed. The kiss burned, an expression of shameful, longing desire, a thing of trust between a man and a woman who knew better than to indulge yet did so anyway. Hands gripped, pulled, demanding a closeness that stole breath as lips parted. She felt him hesitate, seized the moment to guide him, gentling that eager mouth against her own, feeling him groan into her as he struggled against the rising tide that wanted so much more than a simple kiss. He had taken the kiss, yet she was the one who controlled it, gently easing away with softer touches until they were still, lingering close as breath mingled in staggered bursts between them.

“I-I shouldn’t,” Cullen breathed, his eyes closed, his brow pressed to hers longingly. “I shouldn’t want this. Want you.”

“Do you want me to stop?” she whispered, a part of her hating herself for offering such a thing but knowing there was only so far this zealous templar could be pushed. He had suffered more than she knew not so very long ago; she would not be responsible for breaking him with her own desires over his.

“I … No,” he whispered, his cheeks coloring with shame even as his hands tightened on her. “Please … don’t stop.”

There was no mistletoe, no crowd of laughing friends to tease them onward. But here and now, in the warm darkness of an empty townhouse, forgotten by the world outside the windows for a few scant hours … these were Satinalia kisses they would not soon forget.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A time jump of three years has occurred. ;)

_**9:34 Dragon, Drakonis** _

Hands gripping, kneading, forceful in desire. Lips hungry, devouring, ravishing, tongue and teeth soothing and marking in equal measure, drawing moaning pleasure from a voice too often raised in pain or anger. Blind lust driving him on, overwhelming her senses in the onslaught of a fever she'd not seen from him before now. Strong fingers grasped her wrists, pinning her down against the rough sheets as he loomed over her, demanding more than he gave in this unexpected surge from door to bed.

"Cullen ..."

He groaned, a frown furrowing between his brows as he dipped his head to her throat, pressing his face into the curve of her neck and shoulder. Both her wrists were drawn upward, into the span of a single hand, still holding her in place beneath him, his other hand diving between them to uncover her just enough ... a touch _too_ eager, _too_ rough.

Poppy gasped at that burning touch, every part of her tensing in shocked surprise. He hadn't been so rough with her for years, not since he'd begun to learn just how to touch her, to draw pleasure from her for his own enjoyment. Something was wrong.

"Cullen -"

This time, he stopped her with his mouth on hers, a bruising kiss that found an edge in the unpleasantly metallic tang of blood drawn from a split lip, and that was enough. She bit his lip, hard enough to startle him back, wrenching one hand from his grip to jab her stiff fingers into the vulnerable softness of his side. He grunted, wincing in pain, the tight wrap of his hand loosening enough to let her take control, to arch beneath him and push him off herself.

She sat up, one hand touching her lip and coming away smeared with a trace of blood, turning to look at him with surprised hurt in her eyes.

"What in the Void is wrong with you today?"

The knight-captain lay beside her, his face twisted with horror at his own actions. At the blood that now stained her lip and her fingers, at the fact that she had needed to give him pain to make him stop. That was ... so much worse than any nightmare he could have endured. That _he_ had done that to her. And that she had not run away from him the moment she could, staying to demand an explanation. Cullen wasn't certain he could give it.

Poppy twisted about on the bed to kneel beside him, her own frown more concerned than angry. She certainly wasn't afraid of him; they both knew that, if it came down to it, she would win in any physical fight they might engage in. She had more blood on her hands, personally spilled, than he could likely imagine, and not always from violence or self-preservation. There had been mercy in some of the death she had dealt; mercy he could not hold up his hand and claim he had ever offered anyone.

But now she looked at him - _really_ looked - she could see that something was very wrong. He was pale, almost gray beneath the tan he had developed on his face and neck; his eyes ever so slightly unfocused, his expression gripped with something that might almost have been pain and fear. His hands were cold, though his body burned, and shook as he wiped his palm over his brow. Was he ill, she wondered, or was something else going on here?

"Cullen?" she ventured again, her voice softer now as she laid her hand on his chest, exposed by the open hang of his shirt.

He closed his eyes, turning his head away ... but his hand fell from his face to cover hers over his heart, seeking the reassurance of her touch. His fingers were so chilled that she covered that hand with her other palm, hoping to warm him somehow.

"I-I can't," he began, abruptly breaking off before he could continue in a lie. "I shouldn't."

"Shouldn't what?" she asked him, watching the play of emotion over his face - so quick, she could hardly put a word to one before it was replaced with another. "Be here with me? We both know that already."

"No."

Cullen rose suddenly, up onto his elbow, dragging his hand from between her own to cup her cheek, whiskey eyes so earnest in his sincerity that she felt herself begin to smile.

"I don't want to lie to you, Poppy," he told her, his voice harsh with some unidentified pain as she felt his hand tremble against her cheek. "This ... this isn't about you. You are ... what this is between us is ... Maker's breath, don't ever doubt that I _want_ to be here. Please."

She held his gaze, drinking in the honesty in that whiskey-bright warmth. Whatever this was between them ... it was established now, three years of a secret they shared only with one another, the stories they told their respective parties concrete with practice. It had only become more dangerous to consider being a little more open, with Meredith pressing harder on the mages in the Gallows and Cullen beginning to question her, however lightly, on some of her decisions. Even for Poppy, it felt more dangerous to be honest with her friends; with Anders, in particular. The last three years had seen her Warden friend's focus narrow even further, blinding him to the dangers he courted at times in his zeal to correct the injustices that burned inside him. She did not know what he would do if she were to tell him her lover was the knight-captain he had known as a new templar in Ferelden, or what the others would do in response to his seemingly inevitable anger.

But this ... this softness, this safety she felt when she was with Cullen ... she could not, _would_ not give it up. She needed this one place to be herself, this one person who did not judge her harshly for the careful way she walked the line in the city, despite his own strong views on one side. To know that he felt the same way, even as he was wracked with pain, warmed her heart, tempting her toward the word she knew she did not dare to even admit to herself. Not yet.

"Tell me what's wrong," she asked softly, hoping he trusted her enough to share that, at least. Her hand curled about his where it rested against her cheek. "Please?"

Cullen sighed, the familiar stain of unexpressed anger in his eyes bleeding into something she could almost have believed was fear beneath the pain. "I ... this is not something I have ever told anyone," he managed, his voice low.

He shifted to sit up, turning his face toward the window. Outside, the rain was pouring down on Kirkwall, dulling the light, peppering the silence with the patter of steady drops against thick leaded glass. Poppy watched him, unwilling to force the words from him, but equally unwilling to let him suffer alone if she could possibly help. She couldn't help noticing the shadows beneath his eyes; the way the lyrium pallor of his skin seemed darker today. She couldn't help worrying for him.

"You are aware that lyrium is what gives templars our ability to negate magic," he began, the words awkward and uncomfortable on his tongue. It wasn't a question; he knew she had met Samson and heard his side of the story. "It is a valuable resource. Unfortunately, our supply has been delayed. We are on half-rations at present, and ... it is not a comfortable experience."

Poppy frowned, not certain she understood. "You ... you take lyrium daily?" she asked.

Cullen nodded, passing a hand over his eyes. "It is an addictive substance," he confessed. "Lack of it, even for a short while ... it is painful. Headaches, nausea, a strange fog in the mind that makes it difficult to think. I can function, so long as I have a small dose to get me through, but ... it is not ideal. To be without lyrium brings back memories I would rather forget."

Four years in Kirkwall had introduced Poppy to experiences and concepts beyond her previous knowledge. She knew more now of conditions in the Circles, of the way city people lived, of the fear of magic she had never felt herself. Anders had taught her about Grey Wardens, and told her of the Circle on Lake Calenhad where he had been raised. She knew what had happened there, through his eyes, at least. And three years of growing closeness with Cullen allowed her an insight others would not have into this confession of his. His nightmares; his fear of being touched - or rather, the reaction to her touch that still gave him cause for shame when he allowed it; the knowledge that he had come from Ferelden to Kirkwall not long after she had. She thought she could guess what those unwanted memories might pertain to.

"Kinloch Hold?" she ventured softly, unsurprised to see him stiffen, to see his jaw clench and feel his hand tremble in her grasp. "You were there."

"Yes, I ... how do you know about -" He cut himself off, sighing in weary resignation as the answer came to him. "Your apostate friend."

There was a tense moment as they shared a look. Cullen deeply disapproved of the fact that Poppy counted Anders as a friend, purely because he was a mage, but he couldn't do a thing about it because Anders was also a Grey Warden, and therefore not subject to the law that insisted he should be in a Circle. Poppy deeply disapproved of the fact that Cullen seemed impervious to the understanding that being a mage did not automatically remove someone's humanity and right to be treated with basic decency. There had been heated words on both sides many times in the last three years, but they had finally reached an unspoken agreement not to mention their personal beliefs to one another unless it was absolutely necessary. That didn't stop them from silently judging each other, though.

It was Cullen who looked away first.

"He wasn't there," he said flatly. "At least ..." Another pass of his hand over his brow, fingers pressing deep enough to leave red marks in their wake on his gray-touched skin. "I don't recall him being a part of it."

"But you were."

It wasn't a question; everything she knew about him, every hint Anders had given her about what had happened in the Circle on Lake Calenhad ... it all pointed to that one event being the source of Cullen's deepest injuries.

"I was like you." The words seemed to come from a long way off, as though he was fighting through all that bloody personal history just to make sure she knew what he had been through. "I thought mages were benign, that they weren't to blame for being born with magic. That they deserved my protection, as a newly-knighted templar. I was so _proud_ of my position, so easily horrified by the Harrowings and the Rites of Tranquility, and ..."

Poppy wisely kept her mouth shut. She knew he was certainly not horrified by either of those things any longer; that something had twisted inside to allow him to watch children being sent into the Fade to face a demon alone without feeling the injustice of it, to wield the brand of Tranquility without regrets. She didn't agree, but now was not the time to start that argument anew.

"I'm sure your apostate Warden has told you the salient details," the templar beside her said, his voice edged with bitter anger. "Blood mages took over the Circle. They summoned demons and abominations, slaughtered the templars - my _friends_ \- cutting us down like we were nothing. I still don't know why I was spared. Perhaps it was more _fun_ to break a naive boy with no real idea of the world around him."

He turned burning eyes to her, the whiskey-bright amber of the gaze she had grown so fond of over these past years no longer drawing a veil over the fury that walked with him but blazing with it, anger held close to his heart in an attempt to smother the fear that stoked it.

"The mages kept me alive," he told her, the horror in his voice more than enough to convince her that, however extreme his opinions might be, in this light, they were warranted. "They taunted me, made me watch as they killed ... killed my friends, killed other mages who tried to stand against them. They imprisoned me next to the Harrowing chamber, where I had to listen to everything they did within - they were making abominations, forcing demons into the bodies of any mage they could break sufficiently with pain. The screams were ... terrible. But that wasn't all they did to me."

"Cullen -"

"No." He raised a hand between them. "I-I need to say this. I need to tell someone." For a moment, the hard anger of his gaze softened as that hand reached to touch her cheek with shaking fingers. "I trust you, Poppy. Let me finish?"

Her stomach churning with disgusted dismay at what he had been put through not so very long ago, Poppy nonetheless tilted her face into his touch, her worried eyes on his as she nodded very slightly. She would listen. Perhaps it might even help him to begin letting the past go.

"They made a demon my gaoler," Cullen went on, his lips thinning as he spoke, He was suddenly tense, wound more tightly than she had ever seen him before, flinching away from where her hand lay on his thigh. But he wouldn't let her pull away, catching her wrist with a grip harder than it needed to be, as though forcing himself not to compare her with whatever nightmare was filling his mind. "A ... Desire demon. There was a girl, an elf, in the Circle - one of the apprentices, newly Harrowed when it all kicked off. I was ... I suppose you could say I was infatuated with her. She was beautiful and bright, she wasn't afraid of me for being a templar. The demon found my thoughts of her, and ..."

He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face away, and for a moment, Poppy felt nausea rise from the pit of her stomach. He didn't need to say it for her to guess what had happened. She had no doubt he had resisted, that he had never given in to the demon, but ... it made sense of some of his habits now. His fear of and anger at innocent mages, because of what they _might_ do, because their mere existence invited demons; his shame at enjoying the pleasures his body could share with hers, because of this dreadful time in his past; the way he had flinched away from her touch for so many months, and even now still did at times. She could hardly blame him for his response to whatever had been done to him.

"I was in that cage for days," he managed, opening his eyes once again as his body began to shake with the effort of the telling. "Tortured, taunted, toyed with over and over again. I never - I did not give in to it, but -" His shoulders sagged. "This isn't telling you about lyrium."

"Obviously you didn't have any lyrium for those days," she said gently, inching just a little closer to capture both his chilled, shaking hands between her own. "You would have been in full withdrawal, on top of everything else, with all its symptoms and torments."

The relief that touched his face at her understanding tone almost sickened her. How was it he had gone for years without anyone to listen to this story? What had his former Knight-Commander been thinking, to believe he could just keep on doing his duty after such a terrible ordeal?

"The nightmares," she murmured, needing to be clear on this, at least. "They take you back there?"

Cullen nodded, the anger beginning to fade into the background once again. "They're worse without lyrium."

"When is the shipment due?"

He sighed, pulling one hand from hers to rub at his aching neck. "It should have arrived two days ago," he told her. "The Knight-Commander insists that it will be here within a week. Something about a delay on the Wounded Coast."

Poppy nodded thoughtfully, making a note of that in the back of her mind. It had been a while since she'd ventured onto the Wounded Coast. Perhaps it was time the bandits and Tal Vashoth out there had a reminder that the caravan ways were not as undefended as they seemed to believe. But she couldn't do anything about that right now. Here and now, Cullen needed her, needed the comfort that came with her not running away from him after hearing the terrible things he had been through.

Very slowly, as though reaching out to a skittish hound, she raised her hand to his cheek, letting him see her intention to touch long before she made contact. He tensed as her hand neared, and relaxed into the curl of her palm against his cheek. _Ah._ No, he didn't need to tell her what the demon had tried to do to him with the infatuation it had pulled from his mind. What he needed was to know that _she_ would never force the issue.

"May I kiss you?"

Cullen blinked, startled by the unexpected question. "I-I ... what?"

Her eyes were steady on his as she repeated herself. "May I kiss you, Cullen? My lips to yours?"

To her delight, he actually blushed, a fresh flush of rose spilling up from his jaw to bring true color to his pallid skin. An almost shy smile flickered over his face, a faint huff of laughter forced from his lips in an attempt not to show his surprise at being asked at all. He leaned toward her, his breath just barely brushing her lips as his gaze flickered over her face.

"You don't need to ask," he whispered, stealing the kiss she had asked for himself in a soft press of lip to lip.

She breathed him in as he kissed her, offering no resistance to the arm that curled about her waist, pulling her up onto her knees as he rose onto his own, quietly thrilled by the confident way his fingers drifted from her cheek into the short sway of her hair to tilt her head just so, to slant his mouth over hers and deepen the kiss. It wasn't the hasty, vulnerable demand he had begun this meeting with, though she could still feel the trembling tension in him as her hands found a place to rest at his jaw and hip. Just telling her the truth of things had driven some of that need to assuage his craving from the urgency in his mind. But that tension deepened as her fingers found their way inside the open hang of his tunic and shirt, as her touch brushed his skin, and Poppy found herself gently drawing back from that kiss.

"Easy," she murmured to him, her lips still brushing his with each word, even as her hands drew back from him. "Tell me what you want. Tell me how you want me to do this."

He hesitated, his uncertain youth showing in the reflexive grip of his hand at her back, in the flicker of wary fear in his eyes. He wanted her, that much was clear; he knew her, and she knew him. But to say the words aloud, to actually clarify with verbal assurity what he wanted her to do to him, _with_ him ... that was a challenge he had never thought to encounter.

"I-I ... you don't have to -"

Her hand rose between them, pressing her fingers gently against his lips to still his protest. "You need to be in control," she told him softly. "Not always, but right now. You're struggling with memories brought up by pain and lack. It would be too easy for me to take advantage of you in this state. So I need you to take command, Cullen. Be in control, just this once."

"I-I can't -"

"Yes. You can."

She let her hand fall away, looking into his eyes; that whiskey-bright amber that met her own gaze with such intimacy, sharing his pain, his anger, the horror at his memories. Sharing the gut-wrenching uncertainty he now felt, the shame at wanting and needing, the doubtful insecurity that held his tongue fast in its grip. But she said nothing, did nothing. She simply waited, warm and silent, for him to find the courage to tell her what he wanted from her.

It seemed to take an age, but finally she saw the flicker of something else in his eyes. She watched as he swallowed, wetting his lips.

"Could ... could you take your clothes off?" he asked, that hesitant anxiety coloring every nuance of his voice.

Poppy tilted her head, one brow rising above an encouraging smile. "Do you want me to?"

Cullen's expression spasmed for a moment in panic, already rethinking his request. Then he seemed to finally notice the smile she offered him, and the panic receded. His hand rose, callused fingers smoothing over the dimple in her cheek with only the barest tremble.

"Yes," he told her, his voice hoarse but sure. "I want to see you."

Her smile warmed at his words, this new level of intimacy between them something she felt deep in her bones as she rose from the bed. For three years, they had fumbled and learned one another, dancing around the edges of something deeper, but only now did she feel that something make itself known, like a soft glow in her chest born, not of the physical vulnerability they had uncovered together, but of this strange, welcome connection that finally allowed him to say aloud what he desired of her.

Still, she could feel herself blushing under his gaze as her fingers undid buckles and laces, as tunic and shirt found their way to floor, followed closely by pants, breast-band, and smalls. There was something strangely freeing about standing there before him so totally exposed, fidgeting to keep herself from trying to hide, acutely aware of the scars and tan-lines and small imperfections that littered her body. But Cullen had never drawn attention to them or, if he had, only to touch and kiss, to ask the story behind the mark he had found on her skin. He had never made her feel less than desirable in his eyes ... and he was certainly not changing that perception right now. Those warm eyes of his were pinned to her form, skating over her few curves with covetous delight, ignoring his sense of shame at enjoying the view she presented. He rose from the bed, pulling his own shirt from his shoulders, reaching to cup her jaw and pull her close into a slow kiss that begged for more than just a teasing show.

And it was hard, _so_ hard, not to reach out and touch him in turn; to have him so close, to taste his kiss, to feel his hands stroke over her skin, and keep her own hands at her sides. But how else could she help him through those memories he had shared with her, experiences that had taken his own agency from him, removed any sense of control he might have over himself and the world around him? This was the only way.

Cullen seemed to realize her struggle, reaching down to take her hands and lay them against his own body, curling her fingers to his jaw, into his hair, pressing her palm to his chest to feel the erratic beat of his heart beneath her touch. A beat that calmed when she did no more than he allowed her, some of the painful tension bleeding from his form and replaced with a tension he had come to know only with her.

"Poppy ..." His voice was barely more than a breath against her lips. "I-I can't ... I don't know how to ..."

Her fingers flexed in his hair as they lingered together, sharing as much breath as affection. And it was affection; this was not simply lust or desire that held them together, that had kept them returning to one another's arms for three years. Indeed, it was more than mere affection in Poppy's heart, but fear kept her from looking too closely. She struggled enough with the uncertainty of how her blood kin felt about her - there was no room in her aching to add fear of Cullen's rejection, too.

"Do you want me to touch you?" she asked him, unable to keep the shudder from her voice as his fingertips traced their way down her spine.

Just seeing how responsive she was to the sweetest of his own touches was enough to bring his confidence back to him. She felt his lips curve against hers, drawing back just enough to see the grin that lit up his face wiping the lines of his care from him for one brief moment. His answer was a wicked murmur, punctuated by the suddenly firm grasp of his hands at her hips.

"Not this time."

And before she could ask again, he twisted, still holding her in his callused grasp, knocking her carefully down onto the bed they had abandoned not so very long ago. She felt herself laugh, reassured by the surge of his confidence as he crawled over her, shivering in the wake of his chilled hands skimming up her sides, down her arms, raising her own hands above her head to wrap her fingers about the slats of the headboard.

"Don't move."

The words were almost a purr against her throat, a promise implicit in the warmth of his purpose over her that made her body arch impatiently toward his. Even in the throes of his minor withdrawal, he laughed at her soft mewl, anticipation rolling from him in playful waves. He had never done this before, and despite herself, she was melting just at the thought of what he might have planned. Yes, this _was_ to give him control, but she hadn't thought for a moment he would embrace that role so thoroughly.

Her breath hitched as his lips passed tenderly from her throat to the first swell of her breast, as his palm pressed to her hip to hold her down, to keep her from seeking closer contact. She felt the slats above her press into her palms as her fingers flexed tighter, teeth biting on her lip in sweet torment with every teasing kiss, every low groan that told her he was finding pleasure in her willing submission. She was his to enjoy, his to explore, by her choice and by his need.

And the burning ember that warmed her heart at the sight of his freedom in this moment, at the understanding that he was allowing her to give him what he needed ... that was not fueled by the wicked trail of a mouth and hands she knew intimately enough already. Cullen _knew_ her, better than anyone. And Poppy ...

... might one day admit that she loved him.


	8. Chapter 8

_**9:34 Dragon, August** _

Maker's breath, but she was beautiful. Even standing there before him, blue eyes blazing with icy fury, armor unbuckled, hands twitching toward weapons she never carried past the door of this one place where they could be together ... Poppy Hawke was the most arrestingly beautiful sight in all the kingdoms of Thedas.

She was also inarticulate with rage, and it was entirely his own fault.

Cullen opened his mouth to speak again, and abruptly stopped as her hand flew up, palm pointed at him in a warning to keep his mouth closed even as hers worked in silent outrage. What little sound came from her lips as they opened and closed was more in the region of words begun but never finished, anger making it impossible to complete a syllable, much less a sentence. He'd never seen her like this, never seen more than a flash of irritation. He was beginning to think that pushing her this far might have been a bad idea.

"Right."

One word, finally spoken, but it was clipped and harsh, not at all the voice he was used to hearing from her lips. The anger was still there, but she had some control over it now, the flexing of her fingers calming as she let her hands fall to her sides.

"I dare you to say that to my face again."

Cullen felt his mouth drop open. What he'd said had been a carelessly thrown thought, not something he truly believed was feasible or even justified. He'd spoken without thinking, even knowing her own history as well as he did, and had watched as she went from upset to flaming furious in seconds. He really didn't want to repeat it.

"I did not mean -"

"You never speak without meaning it," she snapped, lifting her chin defiantly in the face of his attempt to backpedal. "Even if it's forgotten a moment later, you always mean what you say. So tell me again, Knight-Captain ... tell me again how mages aren't people, and therefore should be grateful to be made Tranquil just to make templars feel better."

"That isn't what I said," he pointed out, but she was ready to interrupt him straight away.

"No, what you did was seriously contemplate that this "Tranquil Solution" was a good idea," Poppy spat back at him. "Just how much did you know about your precious Ser Alrik, hmm? Did you know that he threatened a teenaged girl with Tranquility just for wanting to see her mother? Did you hear the disgusting implication in his assurance to her that she'd do anything he told her do when she was Tranquil?"

"She was attempting to escape -"

"She was alone in dark caverns, and surrounded by templars. I do not want to hear you try and justify the need for more than a dozen templars to intimidate and terrify a single mage, especially when she was so scared that she immediately acquiesced to going back!" Poppy was glaring at him again. "And it was after she agreed to go back, after she told Alrik that she'd do anything he said, that he threatened her. That isn't the protection your order is supposed to give mages, Cullen - that is a nasty, greedy little man abusing his position of power with the ease of someone who has got away with it for far too long!"

"If I had known Alrik was abusing his position, I would have prevented it," he tried to assure her. "You know I do not condone the abuse of mages -"

"It's not just Alrik, Cullen!" Poppy let out an explosive breath, turning away with an impotent wave of her hand. "Look, I know things are bad here in Kirkwall. I know there's a higher rate of blood magic, but the templar attitude is not helping matters. Take away the magic, and what is the Gallows? It's a prison for a whole layer of society, watched over by an army made up of individuals who don't all share your convictions or your reasons for being wary. Alrik isn't the only templar I've met who took advantage."

"Give me names, evidence, I will deal with them."

"No, Cullen, you won't," she said bitterly. "You can't. I have met ... three templars that I would trust to watch over mages here, and one of them won't even be a full templar for another seven years. Meredith's regime doesn't reward moderation or even care for the people under your charge - and they are people, Cullen. You can't strip someone's humanity away from them just because they were born different!"

"Mages are not people as you and I are people, they -"

Her hand flew toward him, one finger pointed warningly directly at his nose. "Do not finish that sentence," she snarled. "Don't even think about it. My father was a mage. My little sister was a mage. Don't you dare try to tell me that they were not people."

"Magic was made to serve man, and not to rule over him," he quoted back to her, some part of him marveling at the sheer arrogance of saying that to a woman who was bordering on violent in her rage.

"My father never ruled over anyone!" she shouted at him. "All he wanted was to be left alone, to raise his family in peace and safety! But the Chantry's laws wouldn't let him do that. Do you have any idea how often we had to change town, city, province in my childhood, just because a templar might have discovered him? Which is better for a family, Cullen - to be left in peace to live together, or to be torn apart because of fear of what might happen?"

"Poppy, I understand that your father was a special case -"

"No, my father was not a special case! He was a good man. He loved my mother, he loved his children. Because he was born a mage, he was forced into using blood magic by Grey Wardens who threatened him with the lives of his wife and their unborn twins - me and Alex. You know what else they probably threatened him with? Templars, Cullen. Your order might have started out with good intentions, but these days you are little more than the Chantry's bully boys aimed squarely at anyone with an ounce of magic in their blood, and far too many of you enjoy that power!"

Cullen's jaw clenched, his own anger beginning to make itself known ... not because she was wrong, but because he was beginning to suspect that she was right. He had lived in fear of magic for years, ever since he had experienced the worst of it in Kinloch Hold; he had blamed the innocent for the actions of the guilty. Even here in Kirkwall, he had turned a blind eye to the injustices under his nose, clinging to the false belief that mages could only be controlled through fear and pain. Worse, he had wielded the brand himself on Harrowed mages - mages who were protected under Chantry law from being made Tranquil. But his anger was rising because he already knew he was wrong; because he didn't want this fierce, lovely woman to have to point it all out to him.

"You should not have killed him," he told her, trying to keep that anger in check. "You should have brought him to the Gallows to face justice."

She let out a callous laugh. "And what justice do you think Meredith would have handed down to him?" she demanded. "She's paranoid, Cullen. Every time she makes a decision, the mages in the Gallows suffer, and the situation worsens. She is not the commander you need, any of you. She's becoming the greatest threat to the security of this city, whether you choose to see it or not."

"No. Knight-Commander Meredith does what she believes to be right." And he did believe that. There was too much conviction in Meredith's impassioned words and desire for safety for all. He refused to believe himself so badly deceived as Poppy painted.

"Then she needs to be made to see the damage she's doing," Poppy insisted. She sighed again, the worst of her anger flown now she had said her piece. "I can't do everything, Cullen. As much as I want to set things right between the mages and the templars here, I have other concerns. I have the Arishok breathing down my neck and the viscount asking me for help with it; I have missing women who are likely being murdered; I have friends constantly at each other's throats just for being what they are; I have a family to protect from all this chaos if I possibly can. I can't solve the problem of the Gallows as well. But you could."

Cullen felt his mouth drop open. "A-are you saying that I should ..."

"I know there's a good man in there somewhere, looking at all this and seeing the wrongness in it," she told him, shaking her head sadly. "I wish I could convince him to come out from behind his fear and take a stand. It doesn't have to be violent, Cullen, it doesn't even have to be obvious. But please ... start asking questions. Stop blindly following orders you know in your heart are wrong. I know it's hard, I know you're afraid. But you are the Knight-Captain; more than that, you know the dangers if this gets too far out of hand. If Meredith will listen to anyone, she will listen to you."

He was silent for a long moment, absorbing not just her words but what lay behind them. How was it that this beautiful, strong woman had so much faith in him? He'd done nothing to deserve it, he was sure - years spent toeing the line to Meredith's increasing paranoia, performing acts that under other regimes would be criminal. Where could he possibly begin to do penance for the things he had done since Kinloch, to try and set right the attitudes he had allowed to flourish around him? The task seemed immense.

Yet ... Poppy was right. She was just one woman, yet too many people looked to her. She had been placed between the Qunari and the city, and no one knew quite how that would turn out. The poorest trusted her; even the nobles respected her. By the sound of things, she'd even put right something only the Wardens knew of. But only he knew how overwhelmed she felt, how undeserving of that trust. How anxiety over the expectations laid upon her destroyed any hope of peaceful sleep. How the mother and brother who should support her were more concerned with their smaller concerns, yet she still loved them, made them the center of her world. Alex Hawke, at least, for all his arrogance, stood at his sister's side; Cullen had seen for himself how protective her younger twin could be when words lashed at her too harshly. The mother ... that relationship was complex and broken, and even that break pained Poppy more than she liked to admit. And in the midst of all this, which would be more than enough for anyone to cope with, she was tasked with keeping the Arishok sweet, purely because he had asked for her by name.

If she could do all that, then he could stop hiding behind his fear. Whatever the terrors of life without lyrium, he would risk them to question his commander ... for Poppy.

"I will try," he conceded quietly. "I cannot make promises of success. But I will try."

"That's all I'm asking," she assured him, her own voice gentling with weary relief. "I'm so tired, Cullen. I don't think I can do this much longer."

There was no need for thought in his reaction. He reached for her, daring the residual trace of her anger to draw her close against his chest, wrapping her in his arms to press his face to her neck, hoping to comfort her, bolster her against the pressures of the world they lived in. She shuddered into his arms, loosing a long, low sigh as her own arms rose to curl about his waist, leaning into him with trust he did not think he deserved.

"You are a better person than any I have known," he murmured against her neck, wishing she could believe him. "If anyone can bring peace to this city, it is you."

She snorted derisively against his shoulder, raising her head to meet his eyes with wry disbelief. "How can you possibly think that?"

Cullen smiled, curling his fingers to her dimpled cheek as she leaned into that affectionate touch, glad to know that she could forgive his thoughtless words even when pushed to fury in his presence.

"I have faith."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning - this chapter has references to attempted suicide, both past and present. Nothing explicit, but worth being aware of.

_**9:34 Dragon, Harvestmere** _

 

"Hawke's mother died in her arms tonight. _Find her."_

But where to begin to look? Cullen had not expected his duty-shift to end with the tattooed elf warrior emerging from the shadows by the gate to deliver that very terse message to him. Why him? Why wasn't she with her friends, her brother? Had she given them the slip all over again, just like ...

_Just like last time._

One thought, one memory, and he knew exactly where to look. He had rushed through his final duties, stripped out of his armor in a hurry, left the Gallows in the pouring rain. The last time Poppy had lost someone close to her heart, she had attempted something he had never managed to draw a promise from her not to try again. Indeed, that attempt was the only reason they had found the connection they shared - he had interrupted it, prevented it, stayed with her through the long hours of her first grief over the loss of her little sister. He knew the relationship with her mother was not the close bond Poppy wanted ... would that make her grief over this loss better or worse?

Heedless of the dark clouds overhead, the rain soaking through his cloak and into the holes in his boots, he hurried on through the empty streets. Not even Kirkwall's underclasses were out in a storm like this. Down to the Docks, past the usual haunts, the familiar tavern that kept secrets with the best of them, right down to the loading pontoons and beyond, to the empty stretch of forgotten wall. He hadn't been down here in four years; didn't know why he'd come this way on that fateful night in the first place. But it was the best decision he had ever made.

Squinting through the rain, he peered into the darkness ... and there she was.

A huddled shape, seeming so much smaller than the proud Hawke the city knew, standing right on the edge of the wall, her eyes fixed on the choppy blackness of the water below. Lightning cracked across the sky, dragging the deafening thunder in its wake, and he saw the twist of guilt and grief on her face. His heart thumped, terror at what she might do when he was just a few steps away squeezing the breath from his body. He accelerated.

"Poppy!"

He barely heard his own voice above the roar of the storm, but she did. He saw the hesitation ripple through her form, saw her head rise from the water to send her gaze out across the harbor. Her weight shifted dangerously ... but he was there, large hands seizing her shoulders to pull her back from the brink, spinning her sodden form about to wrap her close against his chest.

"Don't," he breathed against her ear. "Please ... _don't_ ..."

Poppy shuddered in his arms. He knew she could feel the pounding of his heart through the dripping layers of cloth and leather that separated them, the terror-stricken tightness of his grasp barely allowing her room to raise her own arms to wrap about his waist and cling to him as he felt her sob against his neck. And a part of him was ashamed of the relief he felt as she cried. Last time, when her sister had died, there had been no tears, no outward sign of grief but for the purpose in her step as she had tried to walk into the ocean. This time, she was feeling it, all the raw pain and guilt and aching helplessness, and he was there to hold her against it as the rain lashed at them.

"M-my mo-"

"I know," he told her simply, rubbing his hand roughly against the sodden cloak covering her back. "Come away, Poppy."

For a long moment, she was perfectly still. Then he felt her nod against his neck, felt her weight shift to let him tuck her close against his side and draw her from the precipice she had twice now contemplated in the lonely darkness. With careful steps, he guided her back to the wharf, along the abandoned street to the familiar inn that had been their refuge for four years. The tavern owner took one look at them and turned the other way, but his wife bustled out from behind the bar to promise a hot bath and a hot meal sent to their room before Cullen managed to steer Poppy to the stairs.

She was silent under his arm, a leaden weight that needed only a slight pull to change her direction or bring her to a halt. The kohl that rimmed her eyes was streaked down her face, more by her tears than by the rain; her hair was plastered to her head and cheeks. There was no _life_ in her, none of the simmering emotion he had come to expect from the woman who had given him so much. She didn't fight him as he stripped her of cloak and clothes, wrapping her in a blanket while serving maids brought up a bath and filled it with steaming water. She barely even seemed to notice as he lowered her into the hot bath, as her skin flushed mottled pink and white with heat and cold as he gently washed the dirt from her limbs and hair and face.

Maker's blood, what was _wrong_ with this city, with these people? These past months had grown steadily darker, more fraught with dangers, and in the center of it all was Poppy, doing the best she could to hold some semblance of peace and normality together as intrigues and schemes tore at it as hounds attacked a cornered lamb. The Chantry's involvement in the death of the viscount's son, the Qunari's constant rumblings ... she had been pushed to the heart of all those matters, and now, just when the city needed her to function, _needed_ her to be able to stand up and command what was left of the right thinking and peace-minded ...

Cullen forced himself not to growl as he worked the soap through her honeyed brown hair, washing away blood and soot and greenish-black ichor he recognized as demon spawned. _Hawke's mother died in her arms tonight._ That was what the elf had said, nothing more, yet the presence of so much of the demon gore, so much blood ... Cullen could make a guess at what had happened. He had listened to Emeric's suspicions, though Meredith had not allowed action to be taken. He had heard of the missing women, of only separated body parts ever being found of them. He knew of Emeric's certainty in the evidence of advanced blood magic being practiced, and of the old templar's death as he pursued his suspicions. He knew Poppy had been hunting the murderer. It seemed the murderer had found her first - perhaps even targeted her mother in the foolish assumption that the Hawke twins would not come for him.

No doubt Alex was deep in his cups, watched over by the dwarf and the pirate and even the elven mage, yet they had not been able to find Poppy. She was Cullen's responsibility, here in the wake of yet more death, and he did not even spare a moment to wonder how the elven warrior had known to send him looking for her.

He ached for her, here and now, his silently grieving lover, not knowing what he could do or say to help her find her way back to him from the darkness that clouded her mind and heart. So he did what he could, however poor his efforts seemed to his own mind.

With hands that were gentle despite the weapon calluses that marked his touch, he washed the soap from her hair, the kohl from her face, the dirt and blood from her limbs. He dried her, dressed her in the only dry piece of clothing in the room - a forgotten shirt he had left behind him weeks ago when he had overslept. He urged her to eat when the tavern keeper's wife herself brought soup and fresh bread to them, grateful to the kind woman for having found dry clothes for them both. And when, finally, they were both dry and warm, he drew Poppy down onto the bed, wrapping her in his arms beneath the blankets, listening to the rain against the window and her shuddering breath in the darkness.

And finally, she spoke.

"It was terrible," she whispered, her voice hoarse from a throat held closed for too long. "No one deserves to die like that. _She_ didn't deserve ..."

Cullen pressed his lips to her brow, glad to feel her shaking in his arms. Perhaps it was cruel of him, to be glad that she was feeling this so keenly, but he had not felt such heart-clenching terror in his life as had gripped him when she was silent and still. The tears, the pain, the physical sign that she was not lost forever in her own self-recriminations ... they were a sweetness she would not appreciate until long after the wound had begun to heal. A kindness he had not allowed himself in the aftermath of his own trauma, and he _knew_ where that dark path would lead.

"Tell me," he urged gently, remembering how the simple act of sharing what had happened to him had lifted some of the burden he carried from his shoulders.

She had been the first one to ask, to listen to his tale of Kinloch and the horrors that still haunted him. It was a gift he had hoped he would never have cause to repay her in kind, yet here was that moment he had dreaded. All he could do was listen, and hope that she found some solace in speaking the words aloud.

Yet it took all his strength not to speak as she told him of her mother's suitor, of the race through the city and into the sewers, of the grisly horrors she had found in the blood mage's lair. All his endurance not to clasp her so tight that she could not breathe as she described to him the arrogance of the apostate who had butchered her mother - and so many others - to create an abomination of mortal flesh. The brutal fighting against demons and shades, the twisted remainders of the women who had lost their lives to one man's hubris and cruel selfishness, was nothing when set against the description of how Leandra had finally died, wrapped in the arms of the daughter she had dismissed, clasping the hands of the son she adored.

The last words of the woman were a harsh cruelty Cullen wished he could snatch away; words that would be etched in Poppy's heart for eternity, a constant reminder of how she had failed the mother who had failed her. _My little girl has become so strong. I love you. You've always made me so proud ..._

"Alex, he ... he was so angry with me." Poppy rubbed her face against his shoulder, clinging to him as her tale drew to a close. "He said, he said I should have taken better care of her. He was right, I -"

_"No."_

Cullen silenced her with a single word, a single finger pressed to her lips as he looked into summer sky eyes darkened with painful clouds.

"What happened ... Poppy, it was not your fault," he told her, as gentle as he was firm. "It was no one's fault but the man who did it. Be glad your mother did not die forgotten and abandoned. She knew you had come for her, you and your brother. She did not die alone. Alex is grieving, just as you are, but the bond between you is too deep to be torn asunder. He will be feeling this as a failure, exactly as you do."

"But she never ... all my life, she never once said she was proud of me, and ..."

"Shhh ..."

He gathered her closer into his arms, cursing in the silence of his mind all magic and mages, the Chantry, the Qunari, Leandra Hawke, everyone who had ever hurt this special woman who sobbed into his embrace. Cursing the city that was one fool away from utter chaos, because Poppy and her brother were the only ones who seemed able to stand up and fight for peace. And even they might not be able to summon the strength for that after this gut-wrenching tragedy.

"I cannot begin to understand or explain her for you," he murmured, "but believe me when I tell you this. No woman ever bore a daughter more lovely, more capable, more formidable than Leandra Hawke’s eldest child. You have become the beating heart of this city, and the people know it. The mages trust you, a great many of the templars trust you, the viscount trusts you, the _people_ trust you. Fereldan or Marcher, you are the beacon they turn to because of the woman you are. She may never have said it before it was too late, but I do not doubt your mother loved you and was proud of the woman you became under her hand."

Poppy almost laughed through her tears, disbelief warring with hope in her tearful gaze as she met his fervent eyes.

"How can you possibly be so sure of that?" she asked, as if longing for some clear response, some answer that would put all this chaos and pain into a true perspective for her once again.

He stroked her damp hair back from her face, lips tenderly brushing her brow, her nose, his forehead finding a soft press against her own. What could he say? What could he possibly give her that would lend some strength for the dark days to come? He had nothing to offer her - no land, no title, no safe haven where she could live and forget the pain these past years had given her. All he had was himself, and a sudden certainty deep in his soul that he should have accepted years ago.

His lips touched hers, pouring into a kiss the warmth in his heart, drawing from the sweetness of her embrace the courage to say it aloud.

"Because I know you, Poppy Hawke," he whispered fiercely in the darkness. "Because I love you."


	10. Chapter 10

_**9:35 Dragon, Wintermarch** _

 

The heavy dreadnought dominated the harbor, a looming threat over the city that somehow the Qunari sent to collect their fellows and the body of their Arishok were endeavoring to make seem as polite as possible. Poppy watched from the window of The Templar's Sheath, some part of her daring any of the big warriors to make the wrong move. She knew Alex was down there on the wharf in her place - her twin brother was refusing to declare her fit to fight, despite it having been two months since the Arishok had almost bled her dry for the sake of the city.

Two long months of convalescence, of Anders and Merrill arguing about the best way to stagger the healing sessions so they didn't accidentally kill her; of Orana and Bodahn and Sandal hovering over her in case she felt the merest whim for anything at all; of Aveline maintaining a guard on the Hawke estate, and Varric and Fenris roaming the halls inside, just in case. Two months of Alex apologizing for the way he had reacted to their mother's death, or begging her to recover during relapses of fever; two months of the twins finally clearing the air between them and renewing the bond that had almost been severed when she had unknowingly left him at Ostagar.

Two months of hearing about the city through rumor and gossip, of worrying about Isabela's not entirely unexpected disappearance. Of sorting through Sebastian's praise for her bravery, and his comments on the Grand Cleric and Knight-Commander, to work out for herself that neither one of the women her priest friend looked to in the city approved of her new status as Champion. Meredith may have conferred the title on her, but it seemed clear that the Knight-Commander was angry that the rescue of the city, the moment of heroic intervention, had been stolen from her. Finally hearing it confirmed from Cullen, after too long away from him, had only made her smile. He seemed anxious over Meredith's response, almost afraid the woman might do something dreadful, and Poppy could only see that as a good thing. He was finally on guard, watching his superior for the signs of her madness that were growing clearer to the sane of the city every day.

"Poppy?"

She glanced over her shoulder to the bed, smiling at the sight of Cullen rousing from his doze with a hand already groping for where she should have been in the bed beside him. She still couldn't quite believe that he loved her, no matter how often he said it. She knew it, deep in her heart; knew too that she loved him, but the words were not yet ready to be said from her lips. She had lost too many people she loved in the last years, fearful now that being loved by her was a death sentence. Yet he didn't seem to mind that she didn't say it. She showed him her heart in myriad ways - the words were not quite as important as stories seemed to suggest.

The vague panic fled his eyes as he focused on her, draped in his shirt, standing in the winter sunlight by the window. He raised himself onto one elbow, swinging his legs about until his feet touched the ground.

"What is it?" he asked her, curious as to what had drawn her from his side.

She nodded to the window, to the view of the wharf from where she stood.

"The Qunari," she told him. "They're finally leaving."

"One less thing for you to worry about," Cullen mused, reaching out with one long arm to grasp her hand, tugging her away from the window and back toward him. "Whatever will the Champion do with her time now?"

Poppy laughed as she moved with his tug, letting him draw her to stand between his knees, offering no objection to the way his callused hands smoothed up her thighs and beneath the low hang of her borrowed shirt to claim her hips and hold her there.

"I suppose I will have to start paying attention to the nobles who want to get in good with the people who saved their lives." She sighed exaggeratedly, lifting her hands to tease her fingers through his curls as he smiled up at her. "I'd much rather stay here with you."

"We have until dawn," he reminded her.

Quite how he'd managed to get an entire day free from his duty shifts had not been explained, but Poppy had a feeling it likely had to do with the promotion of a few less than savoury types within the templar ranks in the last couple of months. Varric had been spitting feathers at the new understanding that Ser Karras was now a Knight-Captain, while good men like Thrask were kept down. Meredith seemed to be giving up on the idea of pretending to be a moderate; those who knew the personalities among the templars knew what message she was sending by giving such a man a promotion like that. More troubling, it seemed she was edging Cullen out of the decisions she was making - he hadn't spoken much of it yet, but Poppy could sense his frustration. Meredith was up to something, and for the first time, Cullen did not know what it was.

She gasped softly as his fingers left her hips, trailing a gentle touch of callused tips up over the toned flatness of her stomach to tug open the single button that held his shirt closed over her form. His hands swept out, to the sides, drawing the cloth with them, baring her to his loving gaze once more. For a long moment, he simply looked at her, admiring the soft curves so often hidden beneath armor and bloodied bandages, frowning at the jagged scar that decorated her stomach, red livid against pale skin.

He had not witnessed how she had received that scar, but the tale had been told so often now he must surely have heard it ... of how the Arishok had impaled her on the spike of his great axe, lifting her high into the air with a roar of triumph; how she had fallen, slumped against a pillar, unable to rise as he raised his weapon to cleave off her head; how her brother had chosen to break the rules of the duel and leap to her rescue, bringing with him Anders, Fenris, Isabela. How the Arishok's guards had rushed to join the fight; how Fenris and Alex had held them off just long enough for Anders to heal her; how she had faced the Arishok again in the midst of the chaos of fighting around them and finally had taken his head. Cullen had only witnessed her acclamation by the nobles, and her second collapse, blood seeping from her stomach and back, and had only been able to watch as Alex had borne his sister safely away from the corridors of power to be healed properly over the weeks that followed.

Cullen stared at that scar for a long time, seemingly unaware of Poppy's worried eyes watching him. Was he repulsed by it? He had never seemed disgusted by any of her other scars, yet that was the one that had come closest to ending her. She gnawed at her lower lip, her fingers restless in his hair ... and felt another gasp shudder from her throat as his head bent forward to kiss the stark contrast of scarred skin. His hand rose from her thigh to her back, caressing the twin of the scar beneath his lips beside her spine, drawing her closer into him with the barest pressure.

"Never again," he breathed, glancing up at her worried face. "You will _never_ take such a risk again."

Then his lips moved again, upward this time, brushing a trail of teasing, hungry kisses to the valley between her breasts, until he could reach no higher without rising. He tilted his head to meet her eyes, whiskey-bright gaze dark with yearning desire, and she answered his unspoken request with ease, bending to touch her lips to his. One kiss became two, became three, a lost count in the breathless, ravenous passing of loving lust between them. Cullen's arms clamped about her waist, pulling her off her feet to twist and toss her down onto the bed once again. She laughed as she landed, worries forgotten as he crawled over her, touching his grin to her own over and over again, caressing her, _loving_ her, as only he knew how.

He knew her by now, years of fumbling and uncertainty turned to skill and knowledge. He knew where to touch, how to touch, the boy he had been given way to the man he was becoming - a better man than the angry, thoughtless captain she had first known. He was not quite where she knew he needed to be to fulfill his potential ... but he gave her little time to consider his flaws as she writhed beneath the knowing passage of his hands, delighting in the gentle scrape of stubble against the soft curve of her breast, in the wicked mouth that enveloped her nipple to tease her ever higher, all the while watching every hitch of her breath, every flush of her skin, with eyes that knew her, wanted her, loved her.

_He loves me._

That was the only thought in her head as that sinfully hungry mouth tasted her skin, laving the ridges of her newest scar with a tender tongue; as he crept down the bed, nudging her legs apart to tease the prickling stubble on his jaw against the sensitive inside of her thigh. She squirmed, breathless under his ministrations. Each time she reached to pull him to her, he batted her hand away, or pinned her wrist to the bed, determined to drag her out of coherence and into blissful ecstasy before he let her even begin to give him the same treatment in return. Denied any chance to give back before he was ready for it, she gave herself up to her lover and his cunning tongue, clamping a hand over her mouth to at least muffle the sounds he was drawing from her as she twisted and shuddered in his grasp.

_He loves me._

He held her there far longer than she had thought was possible, shuddering, shaking, quaking on the very edge - one long drawn-out moment of almost that had her close to squealing with frustrated delight, her hands fisting in the crumpled sheets beneath her, back arched, toes flexing and contracting as her thighs shimmered with uncontrollable tremors that racked through every last nerve in her body. Only when she was whimpering, pleading, begging to be released did he give her that blessed absolution, murmuring words she could not understand into the quivering pulse of her quim as she bucked at his touch, his name on her lips as tender as a prayer.

 _He loves me_.

And even when she was listless beneath him, Cullen was not yet done, rising to crawl over her with a grin that spoke of his deep satisfaction at the way she had responded to his every whim, capturing her mouth with lips that tasted of her own pleasure mingled with something that was entirely him. He pulled her up, then ... up from where she sprawled on the bed, the shirt pushed away from her arms to leave her bare once again in his embrace, lifting her onto his braced knees and closer, too, until she felt the slick head of his cock stroking at the sweet throb of her slit. Her arms curled about his shoulders, breath mingling with his as her nose circled his own, breathing him in as he drew her down to envelop his cock with a glorious groan.

"Maker's ... " His curse trailed off as he buried his face in her neck, holding her there, unmoving for an eternity of heartbeats, both of them trembling together as they embraced, somehow closer in that moment than they had been before.

And the words came, unbidden, to Poppy's lips. Unthought of, unconsciously called, the answer to his quiet certainty shared months before, finally brave enough to assure him that he was not alone. Her lips brushed his ear, her voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

"I love you."

Cullen went very still. He barely breathed, moving only to raise his head and look into her eyes, his whiskey-warm gaze searing her own as though searching her soul, needing to know that she meant it, needing to _believe_ it. Poppy felt her trembling lips curve into a tender smile under his scrutiny.

"I _do_ love you," she whispered fervently. "I've loved you for years."

"Years?"

The word was a hoarse question, filled with fragile uncertainty. How long had it been since he'd felt loved, she wondered. How long since his life held more than fear and distrust and anger? He'd begun to move past some of it, but was it really so hard to accept that she loved him?

"Do you remember the night you found me bleeding outside the Gallows?" she murmured, combing her fingers tenderly through his hair. "You risked so much just to see me safe that night. I knew I loved you then, I just ... I didn't think you wanted me to."

"Poppy ..."

His lips crashed to hers, pushing her back, laying her down on the crumpled sheets all over again as he drove into her, stealing her breath with each fierce kiss as she welcomed the sudden urgency of his desire. And all the while he murmured to her, between hasty breath and fervent groans, that he loved her, that she loved him, that he never wanted this moment to end ...

Yet end it did, in a stiffening, aching, arching climax that threw both their voices to the stillness of the room around them, heedless of anyone hearing beyond the door. A risk, certainly, but not too much of one, given the foul-tasting concoction Poppy still had to choke down daily to be certain she was healing fully. Indeed, the risk never entered their minds, not even when they gathered that same stillness about themselves, pressed close together in the tangle of sheets and limbs, still clinging to one another as breath and hearts calmed.

Cullen rolled just a little to his side, gathering Poppy close into his arms to trade tender kisses back and forth. She had almost died in front of him; she had suffered through so much, and no doubt the city had more to throw at her. But right now, in this moment, he had nothing to say, no thoughts to give to anyone who was not Poppy Hawke.

_She loves me._


	11. Chapter 11

_**9:35 Dragon, Guardian** _

 

"What are _you_ doing here?"

It was rare indeed to see Varric Tethras looking openly shifty. Poppy raised her brow, looking down at her friend with every air of expectation. She was attempting to conceal her own sense of alarm. The last place she had ever expected to find any of her friends was here in The Templar's Sheath; she'd been so careful to keep her liaisons here with Cullen a secret from everyone but Isabela. But, of course, Isabela had disappeared, gone to ground somewhere for some reason she had not chosen to share in the wake of the Arishok's defeat, and no amount of searching could uncover her.

"Now, Hawke, I'd just like you to know that this was not _my_ idea," Varric began, but was interrupted by the sound of scuffling from the room behind him.

 _My room_ , Poppy realized, pushing past the dwarf to open the door in a sudden surge of alarm. What she found there did not improve her temper over-much.

Alex had hold of Cullen by the collar, his other fist bunched. Cullen had his own palm pressed against Alex's chin, keeping him off-balance to avoid the punch that was coming. Both men were attempting to swipe each other's legs out from beneath them. Poppy's eyes narrowed.

"What, in the name of Andraste's sacred stocking-garters, is going on?" she demanded.

Cullen hesitated, his eyes focusing on the furious woman now glaring at him and her own twin brother. That hesitation loosened his grasp, and Alex's fist came around, planting his spiked gauntlet firmly on the templar's mouth. Blood blossomed from beneath that strike as Cullen staggered back, and Poppy's temper snapped.

With Varric cringing behind her, she stormed into the room, grasped her brother firmly by the shoulder, spun him about, and punched him in a place no man would like a small, determined, and above all, strong fist to punch. Alex howled, crumpling down onto his knees, eyes watering through the pain.

"What the -"

Poppy's finger whipped out to point at her brother's nose, trembling with anger. "Don't you _dare_ ," she warned. "Varric, go and ask the tavern keeper for cloths and water, if you please. Right _now_."

Varric didn't need telling twice. He'd seen Poppy's temper only in actual fights thus far; he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be close to while she was simmering with anger with no one to stab close at hand. Cullen heaved himself up onto an elbow, his hand pressed to the bloody gash on his upper lip. He opened his mouth to speak, and Poppy's other hand lashed out to point the other finger at him.

"Not a word," was hissed. "From either of you. On your feet, sit down, and Maker help you if I hear a peep from _either_ of you until I'm ready for it."

The silence that reigned over them as Alex and Cullen reluctantly sat down on the bed side by side was sullen in the extreme. But, Poppy noted, it was tempered by a certain amount of guilt on both sides. By the time she had applied a wrap of ice to Alex's manhood and stitched the new gash on Cullen's lip closed, her own temper had settled, but she was not yet ready to have the truth laid out before her. Instead, she turned to Varric.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded of her dwarven friend.

Varric offered as innocent a shrug as he could manage. "I've been handling Rivaini's bills since she took off on us," he explained. "Maintaining her rooms in inns, that sort of thing. She's good for it, when she comes back." He glanced at Alex accusingly. " _Someone_ doesn't know when to take no for an answer."

Alex glared at him. "I wanted to find her," he began, but stopped abruptly as Poppy's finger rose in warning against saying _anything_ without permission from his twin.

As much as people tended to believe that Alex was the dominant twin, it was very clear in this instance that all Poppy had to do was snap her fingers and her brother would roll over and play dead at her command. Soft she might seem, but soft did not mean weak.

"So Alex went through those bills," she filled in the gap, turning back to Varric. "What brought you both _here?"_

"Ah ..." Varric had the decency to look a little shame-faced. "Look, Hawke, it isn't _spying_ , exactly," he said, hurrying to get that in as fast as he could. "You're my friend, I keep an eye on my friends. Make sure they don't hit too much trouble, you know? I, uh ... I might have let slip that I knew you were using this tavern."

"Right."

The look in the blue eyes told the dwarf they'd be having words about this at a later date, but for now, Poppy was already turning her attention to her brother.

"So you decided to come down here and ... what, exactly?" she demanded of her twin. "What were you expecting to find?"

"I was expecting to find 'Bela," Alex burst out. "Not this damned knight-captain all cozy on the bed!"

She blinked, raising a brow at Cullen. He, at least, looked ashamed still of the scene she had walked into; he'd never forget it, either, if she was any judge of wounds. That was going to be a _very_ impressive scar when it healed. Alex went on without waiting to be encouraged.

"He said he was waiting for you," he said, anger clear in his voice. "Said you knew he was here, that you've been meeting up with him here for years -"

"He's right," Poppy interrupted, momentarily gratified to see a flicker of guilty uncertainty flash through her brother's eyes. "Let me guess ... you decided he was lying and started a fight. And _you_ -" Her gaze cut to Cullen sharply. "You engaged with it."

Silence was her only reply, both men lowering their eyes like scolded schoolboys to their shuffling feet. Poppy's hands found a place to rest on her hips as she glared at the both of them.

"You honestly thought that beating each other over the head with your fists was a better course of action than, I don't know, _waiting_ for me to clarify the situation for you both?" she asked with pointed annoyance. "I don't know whether it's pride or ignorance in men that declares a fight is better than a conversation, but given that you seem to have engaged in fisticuffs over _me_ , I think _I_ should have a say in how it turns out, don't you?"

More silence, broken only by the soft grumble of not-quite-words attempting to line themselves up behind Alex's lips. Cullen, she was pleased to note, had learned not to poke at her temper and was keeping his own mouth firmly closed. Or perhaps his lip hurt too much to make speech worthwhile when she was bound to interrupt anyway.

"So let's make things absolutely clear, shall we?" Poppy went on. "I am in love with Cullen. I have been in a relationship with him for five years now. A secret relationship, yes, but if you pull your head out of your backside for five minutes, Alex, you'll realize why. And that secrecy is going to be _maintained_ , am I understood?"

This time, her glare took in Varric as well, standing by the door in an attempt to win Thedas' Best Nonchalant Bystander Award. The dwarf was quick to nod his assent, prepared to agree to - and abide by - Poppy's decision on this aspect of her life, despite the sheer writerly juiciness of the whole situation. Alex frowned at the demand.

"So ... you don't want anyone else to know?" he asked his sister in confusion. "Not even your friends?"

"Alex ..." Poppy sighed, passing a hand over her short hair. "I know you're not an idiot. It isn't that I don't trust our friends. But the more people who know, the more dangerous the situation becomes. It would put Aveline in a terrible position; Merrill might not trust me any longer, and Anders ..."

She trailed off. Anders was the main reason she needed to keep her relationship with Cullen secret and separate from her friends' knowledge. The Warden mage was growing ever more isolated in his pursuit of justice, and she supported his ultimate goal. But the methods, the risks, the increasing hard line he took in generalizing _all_ templars as monsters and _all_ mages as innocents ... it worried her deeply. He was losing sight of the individuals, the whole reason he had begun his quiet revolution in the first place. She agreed that the Chantry was to blame for all of it, but not with his continued insistence on sneaking into the Gallows to ferment trouble. Those actions only served to polarize the two opposing sides further, and make it harder for the moderates among the templars to make themselves heard with safety.

Thankfully, Alex wasn't quite dense enough not to understand why she couldn't put all this into words.

"Anders," he agreed with a low sigh. "All right. And I suppose it keeps him safe from Mad Meredith and her be-knighted bastards, too."

The shock on Cullen's face almost made Poppy laugh. Evidently the nickname the general populace was using in quiet corners to refer to the knight-commander had not yet filtered into the Gallows. She did manage to keep her expression locked tight, however.

"It does," she agreed with her brother. "Why did you attack him?"

Jaw clenching for a moment, Alex adjusted the cold compress on his crotch as he answered.

"Because you're my sister," he said bluntly. "You're all I have left. And because he doesn't deserve you."

"Alex, _you_ don't deserve her," Varric chimed in from behind Poppy. He shrugged as the woman in question turned to look at him sharply. "Well, he doesn't."

"I am aware I do not deserve her," Cullen spoke up at last. "I understand how privileged I am to be the recipient of her love."

"And you should have known better than to engage in a fist-fight with the only family I have left," Poppy told him quietly. "You _both_ know me better than to try and make me choose."

And there it was, a new kind of silence; a silence that recognized the ill both men had done in jumping to conclusions and attempting to solve their differences with violence. The two people she loved most, the only family she had left and the only man she had ever loved, had not thought of her as more than something to fight over. However short that fight had been, they had fallen short of her expectations of them, and that, more than anything, stung most harshly in unseen wounds.

"Aren't things hard enough?" she asked them both, still speaking in soft tones. "Haven't I lost enough already? I love you both, which you would have known if you'd waited to ask me for my opinion. I'm not asking you to be friends; I'm not even asking you to be civil to one another. But I won't give up a part of my heart just to satisfy the other. Alex, you _have_ to accept this, whether you like it or not. Cullen, you _have_ to allow that my brother isn't going to be happy about our relationship. I need you both. I _won't_ be forced into choosing between you."

"Pops ..." Awkwardly, Alex rose from his seat, discarding the ice-wrap to take his sister's hands in his own. "I know I'm an arse," he told her. "I know I'm selfish and too angry. I'm sorry. If he makes you happy - and Maker knows you deserve some happiness - then of course I accept it. I don't like it, I don't like the danger ... but you know your heart better than I do. If you love him, then keep him."

"I'm sorry 'Bela's gone," she answered softly. "I'm sure she'll come back, I just ... I think she needs to be away from all of us for a while. Everything that happened was a consequence of her actions. She needs time to come to terms with that."

He sighed, shaking his head, large hands squeezing hers for a long moment. "I know," he conceded. "I suppose I'll just have to make do with irritating Fenris instead."

Despite herself, Poppy snorted with laughter, reaching up to hug her brother tightly. "She'll come back," she promised him again. "And thank you."

For a long moment, the twin siblings stood there, wrapped in each other, making certain the freshly renewed bond between them had not been hurt too badly by a moment of poor judgment on his part. Then they broke apart with a nod. Alex stepped back, offering another nod to Cullen, and moved toward the door, albeit with something of a limp. Varric stepped aside for him, casting a curious glance to Poppy.

"Not a word, Varric," she warned him quietly.

The dwarf smiled, nodding back to her. "My lips are sealed, Hawke."

"What about your quill?"

He hesitated, rolling his eyes. "Fine, that too."

Poppy smiled. "Good. Sod off."

As the door closed behind them, she turned back to Cullen, who had not moved from his seat on the bed. The stitched gash on his upper lip was livid against his paler skin, his ears burning in answer to the pain that rose when he opened his mouth to speak.

"I'm sorry, Poppy," he mumbled, unable to form clearer words when each syllable tugged painfully at the fresh wound on his lip. He'd spoken clearly while Alex was there, too proud to show the man the damage his gauntleted punch had done, but with Poppy, there was no need to be proud. "I goaded him. I should not have done so."

"No, you shouldn't have," she agreed, moving to sit beside him on the bed. "You're going to have a glorious scar to remember today by."

He huffed out a vague sound of amusement. "I _am_ sorry, Poppy."

She shook her head. "I know you are," she assured him. "I know it was the heat of the moment, and I also know that Alex is very hard to talk down. I think we got off lightly, to be honest."

Cullen's smile was decidedly lopsided, an attempt to smile without moving the upper right portion of his mouth at all as he raised his hand to tuck her hair back behind her ear.

"I am afraid my plans for this afternoon have been somewhat thwarted," he added, in the same apologetic tone. "I doubt I am going to be able to use my mouth much at all for a few days."

Poppy's smile blossomed in a rather wicked display of delight.

"Oh, what a terrible shame," she said, exaggerating her feigned disappointment just to see his whiskey-warm eyes crinkle and sparkle with laughter. "You'll just have to lie back and take it for once then, won't you?"

His chuckle rumbled through his chest as he took her into his arms, letting her tip him back onto the bed as her lips brushed tenderly over the tip of his nose.

"Oh, however will I manage ..."


	12. Chapter 12

_**9:36 Dragon, Harvestmere** _

 

"Bloody nobles and their bloody parties ..."

An arrow sliced over her head, narrowly missing giving her hair a new parting. Poppy swore and rolled to fresh cover, staggering as her legs tangled in the long skirt of her gown. She paused briefly, lurched out of cover, and neatly wrapped her belt around the neck of the nearest thug. She pulled it tight, heaving him back behind the low wall before his friends could see, and held on for grim death. Once his struggles stopped, she unlooped the belt, and bent over him, busily removing his leather armor and weapons.

"... damned stupid dresses ..."

She could hear the group circling, trying to find her, fingers feverishly buckling the loose armor into place over the gown she was wearing. She had been at a soiree thrown by one of the many nobles in Kirkwall - one of their ridiculous events that she simply _had_ to attend. Alex had convinced her to go to a couple of those parties shortly after the Arishok's defeat, and since then, she'd had to go to every one of them, or risk having the Champion of Kirkwall be perceived as currying favor with certain of the noble houses. Tonight, Alex had disappeared with one of the daughters of the house - and she had a feeling that Isabela was going to use all his transgressions against him when she eventually came back to them - leaving Poppy to make her own way home alone.

It should have been a simple short walk across Hightown. Instead, she was ambushed outside the Chantry, and only just managed to make it up the steps and out of sight before the archers nocked and loosed. Running in these shoes was not a fun experience; fighting in this dress was going to be less-so. But she was armed, she had armor; she could do this.

Footsteps on the Chantry steps drew her attention to the approach of the fighters, bows discarded now it was clear she would not make the mistake of putting herself into the open. Poppy hitched the velvet skirt to her thighs, drawing the fabric between her legs and tying the two ends at her waist. Leaning down, she drew the daggers she had taken from her victim. _Eight of them,_ she thought, _and if they're clever, they've left a couple at the bottom of the steps with bows._ So ... six at close range, and two to dodge. This was going to hurt.

She saw the press of the first boot on the top step and surged out of cover, channeling all the rage and resentment she usually suppressed into her attack. The first thug went down with a sliced throat; the second got a kick that broke his kneecap, and a knee in the forehead as he went down. A sword slapped hard against her back, knocking her forward into the range of the fourth man, who thrust a wicked dagger toward her stomach. She twisted awkwardly, hindered by the strange bulk of the skirt wrapped about her hips and thighs, and staggered directly into him, knowing them both off-balance as an arrow skimmed her cheek. Pain blossomed, hot and wet, at this first blood, and Poppy screeched, throwing one of her daggers at the archer that had fired.

It missed ... but the archers had other problems. A four-legged shape barreled out of the shadows and ripped at the back of their knees with his sharp teeth - Rogue, Poppy's mabari, had apparently given up waiting for his mistress to come home. Grinning in spite of the pain in her cheek, Poppy turned her attention back to the four remaining on the steps with her, ducking to avoid a blow that could have removed her head if she hadn't turned at that moment. Head down, she rushed that attacker, catching him in the stomach with her shoulder as the wicket door of the Chantry opened, someone inside curious as to the noise so close by.

A hand grabbed at her hair, finding a handful despite its short length, and yanked her backward, cold steel sweeping toward her throat. She dropped down onto one knee, and stabbed backward with the dagger still in her hand. The grip released instantly as blood poured over her blade grip, the man she had just emasculated howling in agony as he fell. But there were still three remaining, and one of them got close enough slam the hilt of his blade against her temple. Darkness threatened, her vision blurred, and Poppy found herself on hands and knees, at the mercy of her attackers.

Then ... blood sprayed over her in a hot, cooling fountain. A curse, the grate of plate armor as the wearer pivoted and swung his sword again, and the sound of a body falling heavily in pieces. The sound of fear in a voice, of footsteps running away; of the fleeing attacker taken down by a _very_ angry mabari. And then ... silence.

"Poppy! Poppy, are you ... how badly are you hurt?"

 _Cullen_.

Ears ringing, Poppy blinked to clear her vision, letting Cullen take her arm and help her up onto her feet. She swayed where she stood, still struggling to see straight as he pulled his gauntlet and glove from one hand to inspect the damage done to her, callused fingers gently tilting her chin this way and that as his eyes skimmed over bruises and scrapes she wouldn't be aware of until much later.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, confusion winning through the maelstrom of other emotions trying to get her attention.

"Visiting the Grand Cleric," he answered, frowning as he looked into her eyes. "They almost had you."

An indignant grumble of sound from near her hip made her laugh. Rogue butted his head up into the palm of her hand as she reached down to him.

"We would have been all right," she told Cullen. "Rogue doesn't let me go down for long. But ... I'm glad you were here."

"I am sure your noble protector is more than capable of guarding your back," Cullen agreed, lowering onto one knee to greet Rogue himself.

The mabari sniffed at him with all the suspicion of a war-hound trained to react to a threat, but he knew that scent. It was almost as much Poppy's as her own these days. Poppy got to see Knight-Captain Cullen's face light up in a bright, boyish smile as Rogue butted his hand, demanding scratches from someone who was obviously part of the family.

"Let me guess ... always wanted a mabari, never had the opportunity?" she asked, leaning back against the pillar behind her as the skirt of her dress finally gave up and flopped back down to brush her ankles.

Cullen chuckled quietly, rubbing his fingers over Rogue's tawny coat. "Something like that," he said. "We were farmers. There weren't many mabari in Honnleath. I always wanted one of my own."

She smiled faintly, one hand rubbing the bruise forming at her temple. "I'd offer to share Rogue, but I think Alex might actually kill me," she teased gently, sighing as he rose once again to curl his hand to her cheek. "I am ... I really am very pleased to see you."

Her smile deepened as he blushed faintly at her heartfelt relief, but a harsh intake of breath from the courtyard below snatched away any hope of relaxing into Cullen's touch.

She turned, aware that Rogue was turning with her, that Cullen tensed but seemed unaware of just what had alarmed his companions. Everything seemed calm and quiet, but ... _There_. At the bottom of the steps, beneath one of the arched quads that held goods in transit, was the merest suggestion of a blue glow, a human shape bearing a staff that crackled green in the darkness. Poppy felt her blood freeze for a moment.

_Anders._

Anders, hiding in the shadows looking up at the Chantry. Anders, seeing her speaking warmly with a templar. Anders, watching her mabari make friends with that templar. Anders, fighting to keep his spirit companion in check even as Justice twisted into Vengeance reacted to the anger of his host at seeing a friend talking to the enemy.

"What is it?" Cullen's voice broke into her unsettled thoughts, dragging her attention away from the courtyard below the Chantry. "Poppy?"

Her head snapped back to meet his concerned gaze, one hand rising to lower his palm from her cheek with a gentle squeeze.

"There are always eyes watching in this city," she reminded him, careful not to mention that a pair of eyes she had hoped would never catch a glimpse of her relationship with Cullen seemed to be glaring at them both from below. "Are you going back to the Gallows?" she asked, keeping one eye on that deeper shadow.

He frowned, looking her over with palpable worry. "I should return to the Grand Cleric now this disturbance is dealt with," he said, but his reluctance showed even before he put voice to it. "I do not like leaving you out here alone, unarmed."

Poppy felt her lips quirk into a soft smile. He understood her well enough to know that her real beef was with the Chantry itself, as the instigator of all the troubles in the city and beyond.

"I'll be fine," she promised him. "I have a dagger or two now and, as you said, I have my noble protector with me."

On cue, Rogue barked, wagging his stubby tail as if to underline the promise. After all, if he was with her, there were few thugs who would dare attack Poppy Hawke, and fewer still who would attack her anyway. This little ambush had been a very rare occurrence. Indeed, it was likely that these thugs hadn't realized they were attacking the _Champion_ until she had already killed two of their number, and by then, they were committed.

The scar on Cullen's lip pulled taut as he smiled at the assertion from the mabari, leaning down to pat the hound once more.

"If you say so," he conceded - whatever his reluctance, he was prepared to accept that she could make it to the next courtyard and home without further trouble. "I should return to the Grand Cleric."

He hesitated, catching her hand with his bare fingers. "Be safe, Poppy."

She nodded in answer, gently pulling her hand from his grasp, acutely aware of the eyes watching them from below. "Tomorrow," she whispered to him, inwardly delighted at the way his ears turned pink in anticipation of their prearranged meeting in the docks.

It was his turn to nod, to turn away with the crisp motion of a man raised in a military fashion. Poppy bit down on her smile at the smartness of his step as he disappeared back through the wicket door of the Chantry, looking down at Rogue as the urge to smile faded altogether. Her mabari met her gaze, seeming to reflect her weary disquiet.

"Let's get this over with," she murmured, turning to walk slowly down the steps.

She hadn't left the steps before the familiar shape emerged from the deep shadow, walking with a slightly erratic gait that warned her in advance of the struggle going on internally. Poppy couldn't help the way she tensed; as much as she trusted Anders, she did not trust Vengeance, the spirit his friend had become when they merged together before she had ever met him. Oh, she knew Anders still called it Justice, but he had told her when they first met that his own anger had twisted Justice into Vengeance. Each time she saw it emerge, the more convinced she was that this was, indeed, the case. And Vengeance was far harder to control than Justice would ever be.

"Anders," she began, but her friend held his hand up with a shake of his head.

"You let him touch you," he said, his voice stiff with the struggle to keep his spirit companion at bay.

Poppy raised her chin, prepared to brazen this out. This wasn't how she would have chosen for Anders to discover her relationship with Cullen, but there was no turning back now. She just had to hope that her friend could control his anger enough to keep himself from being taken over in his fervor for revenge on everyone who wore the flaming sword.

"Yes, I did," she agreed quietly. "He saved my life."

Golden-brown eyes - the eyes of her _friend_ \- frowned at her as Anders shook his head once again.

"No," he said, his own voice as quiet as hers. "You let him touch you like a lover. Do you love him?"

She bit her lip. "I do."

Blue-white crackled into those eyes as anger surged into his expression.

"He's a templar, Poppy," he snapped, but this time she cut him off.

"And you're a mage," she reminded him sharply. "An abomination in most eyes. When have I ever allowed a person's status to cloud my opinion of them as a person?"

"He's wielded the brand!" Anders protested, gesturing wildly toward the Chantry even as he exerted that supreme control to draw his spirit companion back from the brink. "He's hunted mages!"

"Yes, he has," she agreed, not offering even a token defense of Cullen's misdemeanors. "But there's a good man in there, and he is slowly coming to the fore. It won't ever make up for what he's done, but he could exert some influence over Meredith if he gathers the courage to."

"What does he need to be courageous for?" Anders growled, pacing away a few steps before turning back. "He could strike her down in an instant, and yet he doesn't!"

"If he did that, he wouldn't be helping anyone," Poppy argued, firm but gentle as she spoke. "All it would do is get him killed, remove a voice that is growing moderate from the leadership of the Gallows. Do you really want someone like Karras in charge of the Gallows? He would be worse than Meredith, and we both know that."

Anders resumed pacing, breathing deep as he scowled at the cobbles beneath his feet. She could see him absorbing this argument, struggling with it against the urging of the spirit that shared every mote of his being. But she _knew_ her friend. She knew he could see reason, if he allowed himself to. And Anders did not disappoint her. He came to an abrupt halt, letting out a harsh breath as his eyes, still golden-brown and his, returned to meet her gaze.

"I don't like it," he said finally. "I can't approve of it. And I ... can't _trust_ you anymore."

The words hit her like a blow, knocking the breath from her lungs in a rush. Shocked hurt flowed through her, stilling her tongue, preventing her from calling him back as Anders, her _friend_ , turned and walked away, leaving her in the shadows of the Chantry courtyard with an aching heart. She'd hurt him without meaning to; he'd hurt her intentionally. In the space of a single conversation, she had lost a friend whose calm had been a sanctuary during years gone by; a friend who had _needed_ her to give voice to the other side of the argument even when he refused to admit it. How could she possibly mend this bridge that had broken between them with just a few words?

Poppy sagged where she stood, weary heartache rooting her to the spot. Rogue rubbed against her thigh, whining softly as her fingers absently stroked his fur. She shook her head slowly, letting the shock flow out of her, wrapping this new hurt close to her heart as she finally found a way to express the sheer disaster this evening had become.

"Shit."


	13. Chapter 13

_**9:37 Dragon, Solace** _

The city was a mess.

Chaos did not even begin to cover every single day since the explosion of the Chantry, and the rampant slaughter that had followed it. Shame gripped Cullen every time he thought of that day; shame that he had not turned against Meredith sooner, shame that he had not listened when Poppy warned him years before. She had seen, so clearly, where Meredith's path was taking her, and he, so blinded by duty and past pain, had let her speak and ignored the words that predicted his future. He remembered the betrayal in her eyes when Meredith invoked the Rite and he said nothing, betrayal he had hoped he would never see there again. But this time he had earned it. He had stood beside a woman mad with power and hungry for innocent blood, and had said nothing to prevent the templars' rampage through the city.

Oh, he had done his best for those mages who didn't turn to blood magic at the sight of them, but there had been precious few of those. Thankfully, there had still been a few templars among the ranks who thought as he had grown to - moderates who would have supported Thrask's foolish plan if they had but known about it. Men and women he could trust to take the frightened mages who did not fight back into their care, hide them in the city. There had been some fleeting thought of perhaps letting them go in the chaos once Meredith had been calmed. But in truth, all he had wanted was to get to the Gallows before his Knight-Commander did. All he'd _wanted_ was to protect his love.

No one knew what had happened within the Gallows that day. Wave after wave of templars breached the inner hall only to be turned back - not by magic and mages, but by the Champion of Kirkwall, her brother, and her friends, fierce and angry at the pointless slaughter being meted out by a madwoman and her followers who did not think for themselves. When it had finally become clear to Meredith that sending her templars into the Gallows was nothing but a death sentence, she had settled down to wait, and he had thought she was waiting for Orsino. As terrible as it sounded, even now, even to himself, Cullen had hoped that in cutting down Orsino, Meredith might come to her senses. He had been prepared to sacrifice the man's life for the lives of everyone still living. And even now, he felt the shame of that thought, knowing that _Poppy_ would not have sacrificed anyone. She had not even killed the mage responsible for the atrocity that flipped Meredith from power-mad into pure madness.

He could not even begin to describe the wave of unadulterated relief he had felt when the doors had opened and Poppy had limped through, battered but not broken, her eyes still shining with anger at the death that surrounded her. And the sinking horror when Meredith drew her lyrium-laced sword and demanded the death of the Champion of Kirkwall. _That_ was when he had made his stand - not for justice, or the innocence of mages, not for what was right in that moment, but for _Poppy_. He would not stand aside and watch a good woman who had tried to keep the peace for so long cut down by the ambition of a crazed lunatic no longer open to reason.

The battle that followed was a blur in his mind. Meredith had called upon the statues of the Gallows themselves, magic that she should not have been able to conjure sending guardians of stone and bronze against Poppy and her friends, against Cullen and the remaining templars who had joined him. There had been blood and pain, terror each time Poppy fell to a blow, relief each time she rose again to rejoin the fray and, at the last, unbridled dread as Meredith became ... What had she become? A wizened, twisted parody of the woman she should have been, a red lyrium grotesque that hummed with malevolent power, yet was powerless in death.

He remembered the quiet that had fallen over the courtyard, the stillness of life and death in an instant. He remembered the way the ragtag band of friends drew protectively around Alex Hawke as he lifted his twin into his arms, too hurt to even hold her own body on her two feet. He remembered looking into Poppy’s eyes, the plea for no more that did not need to be spoken. And he remembered putting up his sword, feeling his templar fellows do the same, and watching as the Champion of Kirkwall was borne safely from the Gallows and out, into the ruin of the city.

Everyone had looked to him.

That's what filled his waking hours, haunted his sleep. Everyone was looking to _him_. The viscount was three years dead, his position never filled thanks to Meredith's intimidation tactics. Grand Cleric Elthina was dead, killed in the explosion of the Chantry. Meredith was dead. Karras and the others of his ilk who had been promoted for their cruelty were dead or in hiding. Cullen was the ranking officer for the entire city. Everyone looked to him.

And he found himself thinking ... _what would Poppy do?_

That thought gave him strength, offered him the confidence to do what was right. He _knew_ her, he knew how she thought. The first thing was to look to the people, to the injured and the homeless, to make certain everyone who had survived had a roof over their head and food in their bellies. He had made a point of seeking out the guard captain, a woman he knew was a friend of Poppy's, and together, they had organized the search and rescue, the building of food banks and shelters, their focus the people of Kirkwall over the demands of the nobles or even the Chantry. The Seekers had arrived, interrogating and investigating, but Cullen had no time for them. Let them punish him for his mistakes, for the mistakes of his superiors who should have known better. He was busy doing what needed to be done, because that was what Poppy would have done were she here.

And that was another pain in his heart. Poppy Hawke had vanished.

If anyone had seen her in the weeks since the explosion, they were keeping very quiet about it. Her companions had all been seen doing what they could to keep the peace and protect the people. Aveline maintained her grip over the guard; that apostate elf had taken the alienage in hand; the elven warrior prowled the streets, cutting down slavers who came to take advantage of the chaos. The pirate had cobbled together a small fleet from those whose boats had not been damaged by debris, and taken soundings of the harbor, identifying the only route that was not a danger to shipping. The prince had gone back to Starkhaven to reclaim his throne, muttering threats of retribution against Kirkwall for the death of Elthina. The dwarf was pouring money into the clearing and restoration of Lowtown. The Warden mage, the one who had caused the explosion in the Chantry, had fled the city with what remained of the mages in the Circle. But of Poppy and Alex Hawke, there was no sign.

Cullen could understand why she had gone to ground - the horror and shock of everything that had happened, coupled with her injuries, was more than enough to excuse her absence. Yet why was her brother not out in the city, reminding everyone that they had a Champion, as he had done after the Qunari invasion? If he'd had time, Cullen would have tracked down the dwarf, _demanded_ to know where she was, demanded to see her ... but his priority was the city and the people now under his care.

"Knight-Captain?"

He jerked out of his contemplation of the red lyrium remains, turning toward the man who had spoken. Another templar captain - Rylen, that was his name - come from Starkhaven's empty Circle with lyrium for the templars here and aid for the restoration efforts. A good man to have around. A good friend, if he could manage to make such a thing.

"Yes?"

Rylen held out a crumpled piece of parchment. "Some dwarf handed me this when I was passing through Lowtown," he said, only the faintest flicker of curiosity in his tone. "Said I was to hand it to you in person."

Cullen's fingers closed on the folded parchment. "This dwarf ..." he said carefully. "Red tunic? Open to the navel?"

Rylen snorted with laughter. "Aye, that's him. Called you 'Curly' too, if that's any help."

Cullen rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Rylen. How is the clearing of Lowtown coming?"

"We've the main thoroughfare cleared, but there's still many hexes crumbling in on themselves," the Starkhaven templar told him. "Still a fair number of grumbles and gripes thrown our way, too."

"Let them grumble," Cullen told him. "They have a right. I doubt any of this would have happened if templars in Kirkwall had been more moderate."

"With respect, ser, it would have happened somewhere else," Rylen said in a dark tone. "Things the way they are, any wee thing would have sparked a flame somewhere."

"You may be right."

Cullen nodded, dismissing him with a glance, and turned away as Rylen returned to his duties. Around him, men and women and elves and dwarves were still working, still clearing the debris from the courtyard, avoiding the gruesome statue at its heart without needing to think about it. No one wanted to risk being infected with the same madness that had driven Meredith to become the catalyst for all this destruction.

He looked down at the parchment between his fingers, crumpled and travel-stained. It looked as though it had come a long way to reach him. And there, the ink faded and smudged, was his name. Just _Cullen_ , written in a hand that made his heart constrict. Poppy's hand.

Stepping away from the bustle of the courtyard, he passed into the Gallows, walking on heavy feet to the room that had become his office, of sorts. He sat at the cluttered desk, loaded with reports and entreaties, diplomatic messages and the like, and let out a long, low sigh. There was still so much to do. But here and now, it could wait.

With trembling fingers, he broke the wax seal, and unfolded the letter.

_Cullen,_

_I don't know what to say. I don't know what I **can** say, except I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. All this chaos is my fault. I helped Anders. I didn't know at the time what he was doing, but I was so glad he was talking to me again that I helped him gather his ingredients without asking him what he was doing. He said it would help to sever the connection with the spirit he shares his body with. I believed him, I wanted to believe that my friend would not lie to me about such a thing.. And because I believed him, Kirkwall is in ruins. No amount of sorry can make up for that. _

_I made a mistake, a terrible mistake. I know you must be angry that I did not kill him for what he did, but hear me out on this, at least. He expected to die. He almost **wanted** me to kill him for what he had done. I did not spare him because he was once a friend. I refused to make him a martyr. I want him to live with the knowledge of what he has done, to experience the chaos he has unleashed on us all. Mark my words, this will not end with Kirkwall. The flame has been lit, and even now Circles across Thedas will be talking about what has happened, remembering the injustices they have suffered. I do not think it will be long before this chaos spreads to all the lands. And that is not Anders' fault. The fault and blame lies with the Chantry, as I have always said. So long as the Chantry holds the templars' leash, so long as the Chantry spreads lies about mages, so long as the Chantry has the people convinced that the doubtful mercy of the Circles is the only way to keep mages contained and the people safe from them, this chaos is inevitable. I know you know this. I won't ask you to agree with me, though. I know you are suffering enough with all that has happened._

_I've left Kirkwall. We heard the Seekers were there, and the rumors that an Exalted March might be called on us, on me. Leaving seems the best way to protect the people from more terror. Aveline knows that Sebastian is threatening to bring Starkhaven against Kirkwall when he has power, his response to my letting Anders live. I know her. She will already be preparing for it. Merrill will keep the elves safe and away from the city. I know Fenris is preying on the slavers in his own way. Isabela will leave for the seas again. Varric is the only one who will stay in the city. Kirkwall is his home. He will not leave it unless forced. Please, don't let him become a casualty of all this. He is my best and dearest friend. I could not bear it if he fell because of me._

_I could not bear it if **you** fell because of me. I know these are only words, but they are all I have to give. I love you, Cullen. I've loved you for years, and even if you turn your face away from me entirely, I will always love you. You saved me from myself too many times to count and never asked for anything in return. All I seem to have given you is troubles and burdens that should never have fallen to you. _

_Don't look for me. Don't try to find me. Not even Varric knows where I am going. Alex is with me, I will be safe enough. Take care of yourself, love. Don't ever forget that Anders was right, though his methods were barbaric. The Chantry needs to be put in check, or our world will burn because of it._

_And remember that, for a few hours at a time, I was happier than I have ever been, because I was with **you**._

_Your always loving,  
Poppy_

Cullen crumpled the parchment in his hand, staring at the open door, staring at nothing. She was gone. She hadn't even stopped to say goodbye. But that was her way, wasn't it? She saw that her presence was a danger to so many others, and she left to protect them, never thinking of herself in that moment. And he might never see her again.

His eyes flickered down to the page in his hand, flickered to the philter on his desk, to the symbol of Andraste etched into the desk, to the flaming sword on his own breastplate. The Chantry was everywhere, even now, filled with pride amid so much misery. His jaw clenched, sudden certainty filling his soul. He knew where the blame lay. He knew who had been responsible for all of this. He knew Poppy bore no blame for what had finally happened here. He _knew._

The Chantry was supposed to be a moderating influence, a gentle hand guiding the masses, protection and care for the poor and dispossessed. Yet the _Chantry_ had allowed all this to come to pass, forgetting that they were the hand of Andraste and the Maker in their urge to maintain power through fear. The Chantry had leashed the templars and turned them into an army, fanned their fanaticism and bigotry until precious few remained who understood the true purpose of the templars. Cullen had been one of them for too long, clinging to his hate out of fear. He wanted nothing more to do with them. 

But he would remain at his post, in his position, because here and now he could _help_ the people the Chantry had turned their backs on. There would be no hunts for the mages that had fled, no cages or punishment for those who remained. He had joined the templars out of a wish to serve, to help, to be a strong right hand for those who had none. Somewhere along the line, in pain and anger and torment, that had been lost. Poppy had shown him that there was more to him than rage and resentment and fear. He could not let her down again.

_Wherever you are, whatever you face, please know how proud I am to have known you, Poppy Hawke. What a privilege it was, to love you._

_Come home safely._


	14. Chapter 14

##  _**Four Years Later ...** _

 

_**9:41 Dragon, Late August** _

 

The new recruits were coming along well. Skyhold was bustling, slowly being set to rights. Scaffolding everywhere, but the masons were confident that they would have the fortress back to full strength within a couple of months. The numbers lost at Haven had been renewed - every day brought more willing recruits for the Inquisition army and, despite his initial complaints, Cullen felt proud of the forces at his command. He could never have imagined that he would ever be in such a position. He could never feel anything but gratitude to Lady Cassandra for the risk she had taken in offering him this position, and in supporting his decision to step away from the lyrium for good.

That first step had not been so very hard to make. The chaos in Kirkwall and the surrounding area after the explosion had lingered for three years, and for the entirety of that time, he and the other templars had been surviving on half-rations of the lyrium they relied upon to keep their own minds. The pains had been terrible, yes ... but Cullen had endured far worse, and the expected torments of living without it had proved unfounded. The headaches and nightmares were to be expected; he'd found ways to cope with them, and he had Cassandra's promise to remove him from authority if it should come to that.

The Inquisition was not what he had thought it would be. After years of trying to hold Kirkwall together, he had leapt at the chance to leave, to find a better purpose than toeing the Chantry's line, and though he had believed that the Inquisition would be an arm of the Chantry, he had also believed Divine Justinia's promise that the Inquisition would not be _subject_ to the Chantry. The destruction at the Temple of Sacred Ashes had changed all of that. Suddenly, they were no longer even a consideration of the Chantry, yet both Right and Left Hands of the Divine were determined to continue on with Justinia's last act of authority. With their future in the marked hand of a Carta dwarf, they had set out to put a few things right, and picked up some rather remarkable people along the way. Naming Xena Cadash their Inquisitor had been the logical thing to do - indeed, he had argued for it from the moment it had been brought up. There was no denying that having an Inquisitor had brought a deal of stability to their organization; stability that was badly needed following their defeat at Haven.

 _Was_ she the Herald of Andraste? Cullen didn't know, and at this point, he didn't much care. She was what they needed, in the place where they needed her, and had yet to make any decision he did not fully support. Thanks to her, the templars had been pried from the hands of an Envy demon, taken out of the plans of this Corypheus and, though he regretted the loss of the mages to the creature's army, Cullen couldn't be entirely surprised that they had sold themselves to a Tevinter magister in fear. He knew he shouldn't think that way; knew, too, that a _certain_ person would have gone to the mages and not to the templars. But _she_ hadn't been here. They had searched for her for months, to no avail. Not even Varric had been of any assistance there. But again, Cullen could not help but be glad they had not tracked her down. If they had ... she would be dead, he was certain of it. He would rather have her alive and out in the world, than lost to them all at the hands of Corypheus.

But ... she _wasn't_ out in the world, was she? Varric _hadn't_ told them everything. The dwarf had known all this time where she was, where she could be found, and he had kept it tight to his chest, enduring hours of interrogation and hardship just to protect his friend. And Cullen could understand that. He didn't like it, he didn't _have_ to like it. But he understood. Had he been in Varric's position, no power on Thedas could have dragged the whereabouts of Poppy Hawke from him.

Unbidden, his head turned toward the north door of his tower office. Even if he'd left it open, there was no way he could have seen her, he knew. But she was _here._

Here, in Skyhold, come in answer to Varric's request. Cullen had seen her briefly - the familiar stance of the woman he had never stopped loving calling to him as he took the steps up and forced himself to turn left rather than right. She was disguised as best she had been able, her hair grown long and dyed a harsh obsidian black, held in multiple braids off her face and wrapped into a high knot on top of her head. The armor was shapeless, too - a far cry from the Champion's armor he had last seen her in. And at her back, the taller form of her brother, hovering protectively as Varric had introduced them to Xena. As much as Cullen remembered the man with distaste, he was glad to know that Alex had remained at Poppy's side. To know that she had not been alone, out there in the world, never knowing if the next day would bring life or death.

He straightened from his lean at the desk, rolling his shoulders to release the ache in his his neck as the memories washed through him. Of stolen hours spent in her arms; of the dawn warming her skin, urging her to wake under his gaze; of painful nights made less so by her arms about him, her gentleness brought to the fore to soothe him when he needed it most. Everyone remembered the Champion of Kirkwall, how she had stood between them and the chaos for almost a full decade and done the best she could. Barely anyone had known the _woman_ ; known of her pains and losses, of the price she had paid to be what everyone had needed her to be.

 _He_ had known. He had been privileged to know her, to love her ... to be loved by her. What he would not give to be loved by her again, to find the peace in her arms that he had never found anywhere else, to be allowed to be her shelter from the storms of her life once more. But life moved on. It had been four years - four long years for both of them. There was no telling what she had faced in that time, how it had changed her. No doubt she had come to her senses and realized that loving a broken templar was a foolish waste of her time and energy. Perhaps she had even found a better love, someone who deserved her smiles and her sighs. Someone who could give her the peace she so dearly deserved. Someone he could never be.

Cullen sighed, pushing aside the ache in his heart as he bent to his work once again. There was no point in dwelling on what could not be. Poppy Hawke was too good for him - she always had been, always would be. The best he could hope for now was her friendship, if she was prepared to give it. The best he could do was be prepared to be himself around her, in the event she -

The north door banged open.

"Hey, Cullen, just showing the Champion around."

Cullen felt the color drain out of his face as Xena Cadash came ambling into his office. His eyes rose above her head ... and there she was. _Poppy._

She was leaner than he remembered, the roundness of her cheeks slimmed down; her skin tanned from days in the sun, but seemingly paler against the contrast of that unnatural blackness of her hair. Her nose was sunburned, the skin peeling off where the burn was healing, dark shadows under her blue eyes declaring the lack of good sleep. Her clothing was travel-stained and worn beneath her lumpy armor, not a scrap of skin showing below her chin. She looked ... Well, she looked dreadful, to be honest. He wanted to order a good meal, have a soft bed made up for her, call for the armorer and weaponsmiths to see to her equipment. She needed to be looked after. But he was not the man to do it anymore, if he ever _had_ been.

"Hawke," he greeted her with a nod, inwardly wincing at how impersonal that sounded, remembering all the times she had insisted on him using her name.

"Commander." Poppy nodded back to him, her weight tilting as she shifted onto the outer edge of her left foot. "You look well."

Her voice was just as he remembered it, the same softness, the same gentle cadence, the same timbre. Or perhaps not _just_ as he remembered it - there was a detached quality to the tone, a pain in her eyes that suggested he should not have addressed her as he had done.

"Oh, that's right. You two know each other, don't you?" Xena glanced between them with a grin. "Was he really as big an idiot as Varric says he was?"

Cullen held Poppy's gaze for a long moment. He could have sworn he saw regret in her eyes, the flare of that old pain before it was hidden away behind a smile he would have known as forced even without the flash of what had gone before passing her gaze. But her answer to Xena was everything he expected of Poppy.

"Everyone was an idiot ten years ago," she told the Inquisitor, faint amusement flickering at the edge of her voice. "But even idiots have good memories to look back on."

Despite himself, Cullen felt a small smile tug at his lips, a smile that flashed into full life just for a moment as Poppy glanced back at him. There was the warmth he remembered, the light and life that had looked back at him from so close so many times. There for a moment and gone, but the relief that lingered washed through him like a tide. She didn't regret him. She didn't regret the time they had stolen together. His heart thumped in his chest as he straightened again, tempted to round the desk and offer her his hand.

"Did she really kill the Arishok all by herself?" Xena asked then, turning to him with that curious intensity that accompanied every question she asked. "Varric wouldn't tell me the truth."

Poppy rolled her eyes, and Cullen felt the urge to laugh. Perhaps it was something of an hysterical response to a ridiculous situation. It was so _strange_ to be here, to see her, to be so close and yet so far away, distance created by situation and time. He got a grip on himself with a small cough.

"I did not witness it, Inquisitor," he told the dwarven woman. "Perhaps you should ask Alex Hawke? As I understand it, he _was_ there."

"He loves telling the story," Poppy agreed, apparently latching onto the opportunity not to have to tell it herself. "He hardly embellishes it at all these days."

Xena's face settled into a thoughtful frown, an expression Cullen was entirely too familiar with these days. She was contemplating the possibility of needing to persuade someone to do something her way. Thankfully, the someone in question was Alex Hawke, and Cullen could honestly say he hoped she made him squirm. He still hadn't quite forgiven Poppy's brother for scarring his lip all those years ago.

"We'll see," Xena said eventually, giving Poppy's hip a nudge. "This way ... I want you to meet one of my weird elves. See you later, Cullen."

"Inquisitor." Cullen hesitated, and added, "It's good to see you again ... Poppy."

To his hidden delight, her name on his lips brought a flush of healthier color to her cheeks, a more genuine suggestion of a smile to her face. She nodded to him again, already turning to follow the Inquisitor through the door to the rotunda.

"It's very good to see you again, Cullen," she said quietly, and then she was gone.

He stared at the door as it swung shut in her wake. And felt the walls he had so carefully built over the last years very slowly find cracks that wanted to open further. That had been ... so _careful_. So _polite_. Some part of him had wanted her to burst into tears, to run into his arms, to slide easily back into the comfortable tenderness they had shared in Kirkwall before the madness.

Yet ... why should she? He had never looked for her; she had asked him not to. He had never blamed her either, though she couldn't know that. He hadn't even tried to write to her, assuming that Varric would refuse to send any message. As far as she knew, he had forgotten all about her the moment she was out of sight and mind. But he hadn't forgotten. His dreams had been haunted for years without her, haunted by the lack of her at his side, in his life, the promise of her in his arms soon. He had missed her - Maker's breath, how he had _missed_ her. Yet now she was here, he knew without any doubt that he could never be what she deserved. He had to find a way to be nothing more than a friend to the woman whose love had changed his life. He had to be content with that, or drive himself mad with longing for what could never be again.

He _had_ to.


	15. Chapter 15

_**9:41 Dragon, Kingsway** _

 

"What's in this stuff?"

Poppy tried to twist to look at the Lady Seeker, but Cassandra laid a firm hand on her head and turned her face away again, concentrating fiercely on the strangely citrus paste she was working through the length of the Champion's hair. It seemed an odd way to spend the evening after a day that had included fighting a dragon for the Inquisitor's party, but it appeared that Cassandra had been itching for an opportunity to strip the hideous black dye from Poppy's hair for a couple of weeks now.

"It is something the mages make for the same purpose," Cassandra informed her, working the paste carefully through with a bone comb. "There is no need for you to travel disguised any longer. Had I known our search had sent you so deeply into hiding, I would have put a halt to it."

Poppy guessed that she'd shot a dirty look at Varric during that comment, smirking as her dwarven friend chuckled and offered up one of his patented innocent looks in return.

"Tell you the truth, Seeker, that's the third dye she's used in as many years," Alex volunteered from where he was lounging by the campfire, up on his elbows and ankles crossed. "The red was a nightmare to get out."

"Red, Hawke?" Varric looked impressed. "You should have kept that one. Tiny here has a thing for redheads."

Tiny - or The Iron Bull, as he had introduced himself - lifted his head from his own business, namely sharpening the nicks out of his battleaxe. Poppy shifted uneasily as his gaze focused on her. He wasn't the Arishok, she knew that, but he _was_ Qunari, and he _did_ carry an enormous axe. The similarities were too obvious not to make her just a little uncomfortable around him.

"She doesn't have to be a redhead to get my attention," the Qunari rumbled, and _there_ was the difference that helped her separate him from his fellows. _This_ Qunari had genuine emotion and feeling in his voice, and spoke like everyone else she had ever known. There was no painful formality in _him_. "She took down the Arishok in single combat, or so they say. That's impressive."

"Looking for a new conquest?" Alex asked, a little nastily. "She didn't do it entirely on her own, you know."

"Oh, _you_ want to be conquered instead?" Bull asked, apparently just as interested in the brother as the Champion. “Happy to oblige - you look like you could do with a good fuck.”

Poppy erupted into laughter at the suddenly hunted look on Alex's face, not even trying to keep her mirth under wraps for once. And, Maker, it felt _good_ to laugh again - not just to smile a tight-lipped smile, weighed down by all the worries of being vulnerable on the road and in the open, but to truly laugh and mean it. It felt good to have companions again, even if they weren't actually hers. She didn't see Alex watching her as she giggled, a small smile playing about his lips at the sight of his twin really _being_ his sister for the first time since they had left Kirkwall.

"Varric has told me a great deal about you," Cassandra said then, ignoring the teasing that continued on the other side of the fire. "I have read his book of your exploits, as well."

"Yes, I heard about his retelling for your benefit," Poppy said quietly, her mirth fading as she met Varric's gaze.

He'd kept it close to his chest, all of it, and she knew it couldn't have been easy for him. Though no one had physically harmed him, days of interrogation could so easily have broken his spirit, interrogation followed by a virtual kidnapping, removing him from the city he loved so much and bringing him into Ferelden. If Corypheus had not revealed himself, would he ever have given her up? She didn't think so. Varric was the best friend she had ever had. And unfortunately for the Seeker, Cassandra was the reason he was here at all.

"I-I ..." Cassandra faltered behind her, and she heard a quiet sigh. "It was not well done," the Seeker admitted softly. "I did what I thought I must."

Still holding Varric's gaze, Poppy watched him squirm a little before she responded. "You're companions now," she said. "You should trust each other to guard your backs. Let it go, both of you. Xena needs you not to be at each other's throats."

She caught the flicker of Varric's glance toward the tent where Xena was sleeping off the worst of her own injuries. That dwarf was almost as insane as Fenris in a fight - Poppy had watched from the hillside as Xena charged the dragon virtually solo, her party scrambling to keep up with her if only so she didn't get herself killed in her excitement. If Poppy hadn't been keeping guard on the approach to Alistair's hiding place, she might have joined in herself. Dragons were a surprisingly fun fight, with the right people at your side. Xena clearly agreed, but there was more to Varric's glance than just responding to the mere mention of her name. Poppy could have sworn her friend liked more about the Inquisitor than he was letting on.

"You are correct," Cassandra agreed, and to her credit, there was no audible sign of reluctance. "Varric, I ... apologize for my treatment of you. It was unfair and unnecessary. But I am ... glad ... you chose to remain."

Varric's brows rose, impressed and vaguely alarmed by the apology. "Well, shit, Seeker, now I'm going to _have_ to write another chapter for you."

"That means he's sorry for messing you around," Poppy translated with a grin. "What serial is this we're talking about?"

" _Swords a_ -"

"Nothing, it is nothing!" Cassandra interrupted sharply, cutting through the quiet snickering that went up around the campfire.

Poppy bit down on her own smile. Apparently the Seeker didn't want _her_ knowing that she read the romance serial. She wondered if she should tell Cassandra that the real life inspiration for the guard-captain was nowhere near as smooth or charming as the character in the book. _Nice night for an evening._ And her own snicker broke forth, remembering the disaster that had been getting Aveline to be honest with Donnic. She hoped they were still as happy with each other now as they had been back then. She hoped they were still alive.

"There's nothing wrong with enjoying a little romance, Cassandra," she heard herself say. "But it isn't all candles and poetry. Romance is where you find it ... in the little moments when you are entirely yourself with the person you love."

There was a momentary pause, a pause filled with a significant glance between Alex and Varric, and the sensation of Cassandra moving just a little closer to her back.

"You speak as though you know of such things," the Seeker said hesitantly. "Yet no one has ever ... I mean, there is nothing to say that you have ..."

"I have." Poppy felt her heart sink even as she said it. "I did, once. Life got in the way."

_"There's a light in his heart that he doesn't want to go out, honeysuckle in his dreams chasing the demons away. Soft eyes, gentle hands, peace in her arms ... I'm not the man she needs, the man she deserves. I will live as she would want me to, and it will have to be enough."_

All eyes turned suddenly to the young man who spoke, crouched at the edge of the firelight, his pale eyes fixed on Poppy. Cole, that was what they called him - a spirit made flesh, or so it seemed, a being who could look into your heart and read what was there in compassion. He held Poppy's gaze for a long moment.

"He misses you," he said quietly. "His heart never let go."

Thickness choked her throat, stilling any words that might have come in response. _Cullen._

Andraste's tits, but she missed him. She _ached_ without him, not even missing the physical so much as the calmness that came when she had been able to speak to him, to lie beside him, to watch him sleep and know he trusted her to be there when he was at his most vulnerable. Every scrap of news from Kirkwall had been examined, studied, held close to her heart, pride filling her at the way he had risen from his prejudices and past torments to take charge and extend care to the whole city. She knew he had _allowed_ the mages to flee, that he had turned his focus to the innocent who had suffered in the wake of the cataclysm. And she wished she had been there to help him. But the Seekers had come, and with them the rumor of an Exalted March to be called on the Champion of Kirkwall, and the decision had been made without a second thought. To protect Kirkwall, to protect her friends, to protect _him_ , she had run away. Yet every day she had looked back and wondered if he would ever forgive her for what she had allowed to happen. For what she had been made complicit in, because of her blind loyalty to a friend.

The strange boy's words had quieted the camp around her. Poppy was aware of eyes watching her, some covert, others openly, witnessing her struggle to keep tears in check as she looked down at her hands.

"If you have the chance for love, you should take it," she said thickly, glancing over her shoulder at Cassandra. "It never fades, even when all hope is lost."

The Seeker laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Cassandra likely couldn't begin to understand who Cole had been referring to, but Varric and Alex _definitely_ could. Judging by the raised brows and concerned eyes, they would not let this rest, either. Poppy drew in a sharp breath, straightening her shoulders.

"So, how long does this stuff have to stay in my hair for?"


	16. Chapter 16

_**9:41 Dragon, Late Kingsway** _

"Head's up, Curly, little Hawke's on a mission."

Cullen looked up from his desk, raising a brow at Varric's unusual greeting. Little Hawke ... _damn, that brother of hers_. He sighed, leaning his weight onto one hand against the cluttered surface in front of him.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew where she was?"

Varric actually seemed surprised by the question. And why shouldn't he be? The frustrated lover would have cornered him within a day of knowing he had sent word to Poppy of their predicament. The concerned commander should have demanded answers shortly after she'd arrived. But this man, this version of Cullen Rutherford, seemed entirely new to him, an unsuspected weariness and pain that had taken weeks to come to light. The dwarf shrugged.

"She asked me not to," he said simply. "Hawke's my friend. Before all this, you were just a suit of armor she stuck to when she needed you. After that changed, well ... it didn't seem right to open old wounds."

Cullen sighed, nodding slowly. "Thank you." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "I don't agree, but I appreciate your reasoning. Where is she now?"

Varric looked awkward for a moment. "Went straight on to the Approach with the Warden," he said swiftly. "Alex is picking up supplies here before he heads out to meet them ahead of Xena."

"She didn't come back with him?"

Cullen felt that like an icy pick in his heart. Was she avoiding him? Was his presence so abhorrent to her now that even being in the same fortress was a torture she could not tolerate? Was he the greatest mistake of her lifetime, a mistake she could not even pretend to be friendly with?

"You know Poppy," Varric was saying. "Duty first, even if it hurts. Kind of like you these days."

The knowing look in the dwarf's eyes was deeply irritating, urging a scowl to make itself known on Cullen's face. He straightened, raising a hand to point at the rogue.

"Don't even think about it, dwarf," he warned. "I do not need your input into my personal life."

"Yeah, you need it about as much as Bianca needs a sheath," was Varric's response, rolling his eyes at the scolding tone. "Look, the Seeker's right. Inquisition needs Hawke - not as a leader, but she's a force in the world whether she likes it or not. I'm thinking you need to sort out what the problem is here."

"There is no problem," Cullen said from between gritted teeth. The last thing he needed was to be lectured by a storyteller who had woven the tragedy of Poppy's life in Kirkwall into a bestselling novel that had lined his own pockets with pure gold. She was so much more than the hero described in those pages, that two-dimensional parody of the woman he loved and who now no longer wanted to be near him.

_"She hurts. She thinks and remembers and it hurts so much to think that memory will never be repeated for her. Elderflower and oakmoss, leather and metal, the rough tug of curls through her fingers; peace and safety in his arms, a place to be herself and no one else, the warmth of being loved for no other reason. He doesn't want me here. He's moved on and I am all alone."_

Cullen frowned, dragging his eyes from Varric to stare at Cole. The boy wasn't supposed to come into his office - he'd already spoken to Xena about making sure the boy stayed out. There was too much in his heart and mind that he did not want spoken aloud. But ... that hadn't been _his_ heart or mind, had it? Was Cole reading Poppy for him, even from so far away?

"She never said goodbye," the boy said quietly. "She never stopped loving."

"She -" Cullen stopped himself. _No, she never did say goodbye, did she?_ His heart flared with an old familiar pain, the pain of her absence all the more acute because she could have been here if she had wished it. He shook his head, clearing his throat. "Thank you, Cole. But ... no more, please."

"I want to help," Cole murmured, wandering over to stand near Varric. "Why won't they let me help?"

Varric smiled ruefully. "Some things people have to work out for themselves, kid," he told the spirit-boy. "Let it go, all right? This isn't something you can fix."

"He worries and frets and never lets her see it," the boy said then. "Years and years of watching and worrying. He wants to fix it, too."

"Then maybe he should be allowed to try," Varric told him gently, seeming to understand who Cole was talking about. "We probably shouldn't be here when he does."

"He's here."

Cullen looked up sharply. He'd been trying to ignore their presence, but that had a slightly ominous feel to it. Cole's eyes had turned toward the southern door of the office ... Which opened to admit Alex Hawke, stern-faced and pinched from the cold of the mountain air.

"Interrupting, am I?" Poppy's twin asked diffidently.

 _I really need to keep some of these doors locked,_ Cullen grumbled in the privacy of his own mind, straightening from his lean as Varric grinned and ambled out through a different door with Cole in tow, leaving him to the tender mercies of his former lover's brother. The brother who had scarred his face just for _thinking_ about loving her, and never truly approved of the liaison in the first place. Not to mention the brother who had torn her apart in more ways than one over the years, in not tracking her down sooner, in reveling in their mother's limited affection, in blaming her for the deaths of their family. No, there was far more to dislike about Alex Hawke than could ever be negated by his few finer points.

"Apparently not," he said, rather proud of himself for not instantly moving from irritated to angry just at the sight of the man. "What do you want, Hawke?"

"Actually, I want _you_ ," Alex informed him, moving toward the desk. "Specifically, to stop being a bloody gentleman and shag Poppy until she's happy again. Think you can manage that?"

Cullen actually felt his mouth drop open. "Excuse me?"

"Right, now I have your attention ..."

Alex drew himself up, broad shoulders tense for a moment, and Cullen braced himself for the punch he was pretty sure was coming. But Alex let out a low sigh, and his expression changed. The stern arrogance faded, leaving behind the face of a man who had seen and experienced too much, who could not change the course of the world for so many millions of strangers, but _could_ change it for the one person in this world he loved above all others.

"She loves you," he said simply, holding up a hand as Cullen's mouth opened to object. "No, just ... just _listen_. She tore herself apart, leaving Kirkwall. She cried every night for two months. She says your name in her sleep. When we ran, she stopped _living_. In the last two weeks, I have seen my sister again for the first time in four years - I've seen her laugh, I've seen her close to tears, I've seen her connecting with people the way she used to. Now you _could_ say it's because of Varric, but that's not the truth. She's never been without Varric, not really. Letters are enough to keep a person alive in your heart and mind. Poppy's alive again because of _you_ , and if you don't pull your head out of your arse and convince her she's what you want, I really will break your head."

"If she -"

Again, Alex's hand rose to cut him off. "She's not here right now because one of us had to go with Alistair, and _I_ wanted to be the one who stopped in Skyhold," he said firmly. "Because I wanted to have this conversation with you. We've never liked each other, and I doubt we're going to start now. She _needs_ you, Cullen."

"She never lost me." It took a moment to realize he had said that aloud. Cullen shook his head wearily. "I don't know how to set aside four years of distance, Alex. I want to ... Maker's breath, I never want to be apart from her again. But we have both changed in that time, grown, altered. How can you be so sure that she would thrive if I were back in her life?"

"Because you love her."

That was it. That was the entirety of Alex Hawke's argument. No waxing poetic about what Cullen could bring to his sister's life, or what she could bring to his. Just the truth as he saw it, plain and simple. A truth that was, amazingly, absolutely spot on without needing any fabricated detail.

Cullen sighed, wishing he had a solid chair in his office. He was feeling the definite need to sit down, the complexities of the situation weighing heavily on him.

"I do," he admitted quietly. "I never stopped loving her. But why would you tell me this?"

The silence in the tower seemed to grow oppressive as Alex glanced away.

"The world is changing," he said eventually. "We came out of Kirkwall without close loss, after losing so much while we were there. By rights, one of us should have died in that fight at the Gallows, but neither one of us did. But this fight that's looming ... it feels final. Poppy's given everything, time and time again, for complete strangers, people who only know her as a symbol or a character in a book. And the world needs her. But if she's going to keep going, she needs someone who will love her, care for her, be her calm in the storm. The time is coming when she'll have to make a decision, and I do not intend to let her make it. I need to know you'll be there to hold her together and get her through, because I don't think I'll be walking away from that decision."

Cullen held his gaze for a long moment. He couldn't argue, not really. He, too, could feel the tug of events, recognize that they were walking a very dark path. He knew as well as Alex did that friends would be lost along the way. The thought of Poppy becoming a casualty of this conflict, when she had survived so long and endured so much ... it was a physical pain that throbbed at the center of his being. The thought of her having to endure the loss of her brother without someone to be her shelter from the storm stung. He had been that shelter, more than once. He knew her at her most vulnerable, at her most hurt. He knew _her_. And despite all the worries in his mind, the doubts and insecurities, he knew she still loved him, just as he still loved her.

Alex was right - the world needed Poppy Hawke. _Cullen_ needed Poppy Hawke. But Poppy Hawke needed to be loved, cared for, looked after. She needed someone who loved _Poppy_ above all else. And just maybe that someone was him.

"Don't throw your life away," he said quietly, almost smiling at the shocked glance Alex shot his way. "We may never be friends, Alex, but Poppy loves you. Losing you would tear her apart."

"But you can put her back together again," Alex pointed out. "You've done it before. I've seen it, don't forget. I need your promise, Cullen. I need to know you're going to close the rift between the two of you sooner rather than later."

"I can't make any promises on her behalf." Cullen sighed, tilting his head back for just a moment before returning his gaze to Alex. "If she'll have me, I will never leave her side again."

Alex considered him for what seemed a long time, slowly nodding in solemn agreement. He held out his hand, which Cullen took with a relieved nod of his own.

"The usual conditions apply," Alex commented. "Pain and anguish if you hurt her, all that nonsense."

"Noted."

Alex pulled back, still nodding absently before he pulled himself together. "Right. Well ... things to do."

He left by the door he had entered through, letting it fall back more quietly than it often did, leaving Cullen with his thoughts.

_Poppy._

She wasn't avoiding him. She would have been here if Alex had not insisted on it being otherwise. She was walking into danger yet again for the benefit of thousands who would never know her for the woman she was. The good woman who tore herself apart in a dozen small ways just to make the world a better place. The woman who had found her way into his heart and stitched herself there so tightly not even he knew where he began and she ended. He couldn't deny it now, even if he had wanted to. Cole had confirmed it; Alex was certain. Poppy still loved him. Poppy still needed him.

And this time, he wasn't going to let _anything_ get in the way.


	17. Chapter 17

_**9:41 Dragon, Firstfall** _

"So that's decided, then. We'll head to Adamant immediately following the Ball at the Winter Palace - everything should be in place by the time we get there."

Xena nodded firmly, patting the table in front of her. It had not taken more than an hour to settle everything for what looked like an assault on the Warden fortress - between Leliana's scouts, Josephine's contacts, and his faith in his own men and their abilities, Cullen felt sure they had more than a fighting chance, even with the probability of demons.

"And Lady Hawke?" Josephine asked, in a deceptively mild tone.

Cullen didn't miss the way both she and Leliana glanced briefly in his direction, feeling his face heat up at the implication that he should know what was happening with Poppy. Alex had remained in the Western Approach with Alistair, both of them keeping an eye on the slow gathering of Grey Wardens at Adamant while Poppy came back to Skyhold to report on what they had found out after Erimond's aborted attack on Xena. Apparently there had been a fair amount of friction between Poppy and Alistair, which was another reason to keep them as far apart as was feasible. Cullen was just a little ashamed of his quiet pleasure on hearing that the hero, Alistair Theirin, hadn't managed to charm Poppy enough to keep her from sharing her opinion on blood magic and idiocy. But only a little. He was more distracted by the looming conversation he had promised her brother he would have with her.

"She'll be coming to the Winter Palace with us," Xena was saying confidently. "Lisette already ran up a spare uniform, it just needs to be fitted. And let's face it, we're going to need every bit of leverage we can get in Orlais."

"Grand Duke Gaspard may not appreciate -" Josephine began, but Leliana interrupted.

"To have the Champion of Kirkwall alongside the Inquisitor is a valuable asset in such a setting, Josie," she reminded the ambassador. "Hawke is well able to navigate Orlesian society and politics. We will just have to keep her away from Lord Cyril du Montfort, that is all."

Xena perked up. "Oh, does she have a history with him?"

Despite himself, Cullen was smiling as he answered before Leliana could.

"She was involved in the circumstances of his father's death, I understand," he told the Inquisitor. "It was very hushed up, but she _was_ at Chateau Haine when Duke Prosper died."

"I did not know that," Josephine admitted with some surprise. "Lord Cyril is now one of the Council of Heralds ... but no matter. If Lady Hawke remains with one of us, there is little chance she will cross paths with him."

"An excellent idea, Josie," Leliana agreed. "May I suggest Hawke accompanies the commander for the evening?"

A slightly alarming smirk passed between the two women as Josephine considered this. The sheer level of knowing impishness in the room increased smartly, raising suspicions in Cullen's mind. He knew what Orlesians were like, especially in a formal setting. He wasn't particularly looking forward to the ball in any case.

"I'd feel better knowing she was somewhere easy to find," Xena volunteered. "Does that work, Cullen?"

"So long as she doesn't have any objections, then I see no reason why not," Cullen agreed, trying not to sound as hopeful as he felt. If he could guarantee Poppy's company for the entirety of the ball, he could also guarantee that the worst of the advances would never come to pass.

"She's agreed to come, anyway," Xena said, jumping down from the carven block they'd had made so she could stand at the war table and not feel like a child in front of the humans. "We can sort out the rest another time. When's dinner?"

As the discussion devolved into the familiar debate about just why Xena wasn't allowed to eat her dinner in the Herald's Rest when they had nobles visiting the castle, Cullen stepped away, making a few notes that he would have to make sure were circulated by the end of the day. There was always so much to do - orders to give, reports to read and sign, requests to confirm or deny, tactics to arrange, training to oversee ... He was generally the last to leave these war room discussions, trailing out in the wake of the ladies by several meters at least, frowning down at the notes in his hand as he stepped into the crumbling corridor.

"Cullen?"

Surprised out of his fierce concentration, his boot caught on an upraised corner of flagstone, bringing him to a stumbling halt as Poppy pushed from her lean against the wall. He hadn't expected to see her there; wasn't _ready_ to see her one-on-one. All right, so he'd had several weeks to mentally plan the conversation Alex had asked him to have with her, but Cullen had thought he might have at least another day. The Poppy he remembered had always enjoyed the night immediately following any sort of mission that took her away from home as a time to be with herself. As the thought crossed his mind, he instantly knew what was different. _No home, too much time alone._ Of course she would want to spend the time with people.

She tilted her head, meeting his gaze with blue eyes that were so much more guarded than he remembered.

"Can we ... talk?" she asked softly.

He could have sworn she seemed almost nervous. But Poppy was never nervous or, if she was, she never let it show. Letting it show was a weakness that could be exploited. That was the sort of thing you only shared with people you trusted, people you ... _People you love._ And she _was_ nervous - it was there in the flicker of her gaze, unable to hold his eyes for more than a moment before sliding away; in the hand that wrapped about a hank of her loose hair, no longer black but restored to the swaying brunette he recalled, gently tugging once or twice before falling to her hip.

"Of course," he assured her, buoyed up by this clear indication that he might not be wrong in his hope after all.

She glanced around the open corridor, her expression just a little bemused.

"Ah ... in private?"

"Oh! Oh, yes, of course." Cullen wanted to slap himself for fumbling that. "Ah ... my office is usually quite stuffy at this time of day," he said. "Shall we ... shall we walk on the battlements?"

The nervous glimmer in her eyes fled at that, reassurance that she did actually want to talk to him, and not just have someone to walk with through the Great Hall. He'd seen the nobles clustering around Josephine's door, eager to be able to say they had spoken to the Champion of Kirkwall. He didn't envy her having to navigate that maelstrom of entitled asses every time she had to pass publicly through the castle.

"After you," she said, gesturing for him to lead the way. "You know Skyhold best, after all."

"I think the only person qualified to know it _best_ may be Sera," he said, moving to guide her through Josephine's office, ignoring the curious smile on the ambassador's face as she watched them walk by. "If only because she has a terrible habit of investigating every crevice at the most inopportune times."

Poppy snorted softly; a glance at her revealed a quiet smile that was achingly familiar. He missed seeing that smile on the pillow beside him. He missed _everything_ , but now was not the time to suddenly declare his heart.

"I would say she sounds like Merrill, but somehow I don't think they could possibly be compared and found similar in any way," she murmured in amusement, wiping the smile from her face as Cullen drew the door open.

The clustering nobles drew back as commander and Champion stepped smartly into the Great Hall - it was that or be mown down. Without needing to discuss it, Cullen found himself matching his pace to Poppy's, allowing her to quicken to a long stride that took them out of the hall within moments, leaving the nobles to mutter and complain among themselves in the wake of two warriors who clearly had other things on their minds. They kept that pace all the way through Solas' study, and into Cullen’s office, where Poppy finally slowed.

"Sorry," she apologized, her expression just a little tight. "I don't have much patience with nobles these days."

"Understandably," Cullen assured her, settling his notes safely on the desk.

He was a little surprised, though. She had always had patience with the nobles of Kirkwall, even when they had messed her around. But then ... four years with only her brother for consistent company, four years of avoiding population centers. It was no wonder her levels of patience with the useless and inane had diminished. It made sense.

"Well ... shall we?"

He gestured toward the northernmost door, letting her take the lead this time as they stepped through and passed across the gatehouse, through the still decrepit second gate tower, and out onto a quiet stretch of the battlements. A pointed look at the guard patrolling this section sent her marching smartly away to lurk on the other side of the next tower. This length of battlement would be safe enough, with Commander Cullen and Lady Hawke there.

Yet now they were here ... nothing was forthcoming.

Poppy said nothing, her eyes focused on the distant mountain tops as she stepped into the sunshine, resting her forearms against one of the merlons that had not yet been restored. The sunlight shone in the honeyed highlights of her brown hair, the longer length making his fingers itch to glide into those waves and curls, to feel the softness and hold her against him, to breathe in the honeysuckle scent of the oils she used to strip blood and dirt from the mane that crowned her. Gone was the shapeless clothing; her tunic and pants fitted her snugly, displaying the toned form that was still a little _too_ slender for his liking, the evidence of a life lived hard these past lonely years. Blue eyes that had always reminded him of the summer sky over Ferelden looked out over the Frostbacks, distant in thought as her teeth tugged at the pillow of her lip.

The silence grated on his nerves. They needed to talk - words that had gone for too long unsaid needed to find expression somehow. But how to begin?

"It's, ah ... nice day," he blurted out, inwardly cringing at the ridiculous opening.

"What?" She blinked, dragging her gaze from the snow-capped mountains to look at him with mild bemusement.

"I, ah ..." Cullen cleared his throat, pulling his hand down from its nervous creep to the back of his neck. "You said you wanted to talk?"

"Oh! Oh, yes, I ..."

Poppy hesitated, twisting toward him in her lean. Her hand opened toward him, then drew back, folding anxiously over the other as she looked down at her fingers. Cullen moved closer, taking up a lean of his own against the same crumbling merlon she had chosen. He could see her turmoil, the roiling emotion she couldn't quite hide from him, but he still knew how she needed this to go. She needed him to keep his mouth shut so she could say what was on her mind without distraction.

"Cullen, I, we ... that is, I didn't ... fuck, this was _so_ much easier in my head ..."

She closed her eyes, missing the affectionate smile that rose on his face on hearing that. He watched as she drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and finally just committed to the sentence she had prepared.

"Cullen, I love you," she blurted out, opening her eyes after this spilled forth. "I never stopped loving you, I've missed you so much, but I don't know if you can ever forgive me for what I let happen in Kirkwall, and for running away afterward when I should have stayed to face -"

He raised his hand, gloved fingers gently stopping the burble of words from her lips. She stilled, her eyes wide with worry and hope as she stared at him, swallowing down whatever else had wanted to escape in that flurry of verbiage. And Cullen felt ... he _felt_. For the first time in years, he let himself fully embrace what he had thought was lost, the feeling that she was _here_ , she was _his_ , that she loved him as he loved her. _Alex, you were right,_ he told the man in the silence of his mind. _Thank you._

"There's nothing to forgive," he told her gently, his thumb pressing just a little more firmly against her lips to prevent any interruption. "You were right. Though the method was extreme, Anders was right. I should have listened to you sooner. But none of that changes how I feel about you, Poppy. I love you. You're the only woman I have ever loved. Whatever else has changed in my life, that never has, and it never will."

"But -"

"No, love." He felt the scar on his lip tug tight as he smiled at her confused delight, a feeling he had not actually enjoyed since she'd left his life. Without her, that scar was a reminder of what he had lost; with her, it was a reminder that she had _chosen_ to be with him. "No buts, no sorries. No more apologies or regrets. Stay with the Inquisition, Poppy. Stay with _me_."

He shifted closer, finally allowing himself to trail his fingertips along her jaw, into the fall of her hair, thrilling to the way she tilted into his touch, leaning into him as he leaned into her.

"No more running, Poppy," he whispered, tasting her breath on his lips for the first time in what felt like an age. "Be with me, always."

"Yes ..."

It was barely more than a whisper, but it was there, her agreement, her longing, heard and tasted and felt, and so much more than just a word between them. It was a promise, a promise that begged to be sealed with a kiss ...

"Commander!"

And in a flash, the moment was gone.

Cullen groaned, his jaw clenching at the familiar sound of his most enthusiastic messenger's voice directly behind him. He closed his eyes, opening them to find Poppy's brightest grin shining back at him, the dance of her eyes promising that the only reason she _wasn't_ laughing was because she was sure this could get better. His hand uncurled from her jaw as he straightened up, turning to glare at the luckless Jim.

_"What?"_

He watched as the boy faltered in the face of his obvious disapproval, as the eager eyes flickered back and forth between Commander and Champion who was, no doubt, still grinning like the cat that ate the canary from her lean against the wall. _She's doing nothing for my reputation here,_ he realized, but was quick to squash that thought. _She's more important than your bloody reputation, you oversized nug-rat._

"Uh ... it can wait," Jim quavered, backing away only to turn and run for the nearest door - anything to be out from under that particular scowl.

Cullen sighed, shaking his head as he turned back toward Poppy. "I'm sorry, there's always - _mmm_ ..."

Her lips on his, her hands in his hair, and all the Jims in the world could not have stolen this moment from him. This moment, this feeling, Poppy in his arms once more, wrapped around him as he tugged her close to his chest, breathing her in with the freedom he had missed for so long. The world could go hang so long as she kissed him, so long as she let him kiss her, lips soft and gentle and loving as they traded that long-denied affection back and forth until breath became more necessary than kisses. To hear her laugh that familiar breathless laugh as they drew back just far enough, to feel himself chuckle along with her as she held him close ... it was as though the years that had passed had never parted them.

Cullen grinned as he pulled Poppy close, burying his face in the honeysuckle sweetness of her hair, and sighed in slow delight. She was _here_ , she was _his_. He was home again.


	18. Chapter 18

_**9:41 Dragon, Firstfall** _

 

"You're doing it again."

Poppy blinked, dragging her gaze from the table across the hall to stare at her brother, mildly uncomprehending. Alex was smirking at her over a forkful of Antivan cherry pie.

"Doing what?" she asked innocently.

"Come to bed eyes at your dreamy commander," he teased, and yelped as her foot made contact sharply with his ankle. He laughed, reaching down to rub it. "All right, all right. Just try not to lay him out on a table in public, would you? I love you, but not that much."

Poppy smirked back at him, ignoring the snickering rising from Varric on her other side to let her gaze return whence it had come. Cullen was apparently deep in discussion with the Inquisitor on the far table, his own dessert hardly touched. Xena was animatedly talking about something that was clearly important to her, and the sheer force of his attention was endearing to see. It was good to know that he had learned to make friends of his colleagues in these past years, that he wasn't as alone as he could so easily have been. As she watched, his eyes flickered toward her, meeting her gaze with a warmth that blossomed deep inside, in her heart and in her belly, casting her face into a gentle glow of a smile that made her brother snort with laughter again.

"Oh, shut up," she managed, rolling her eyes away from Cullen as warmth grew in her cheeks. "This is all your doing, you can't complain about it."

"Am I complaining?" Alex defended himself. "I thought I'd earned the right to be smug."

"Not until it's a done deal," Varric interjected across Poppy. "Half an hour of grabby kisses does not mean they're back for good."

"Gosh, aren't you the little ray of sunshine?" Poppy drawled to her friend, unable to keep her smile in check as he guffawed with laughter. "Easy there, short-arse. You're already halfway to the done deal with Xena, you know."

Varric's laughter abruptly stopped, and Poppy had the privilege of seeing her friend look totally disconcerted. He glanced across at the Inquisitor's table himself, his own gaze lingering as Xena let out a raucous laugh of her own. She knew that look - she'd seen it in Cullen's eyes too many times not to know it - but Varric seemed hell-bent on not admitting his heart was already lost.

"Not gonna happen, Hawke," he told her quietly, dragging his eyes away.

"Bianca?" she murmured, concerned when he blanched and nodded. "One of these days, you're going to have to tell me this story."

"When it's over, maybe." He sighed, shaking his head. "But enough about me. Can I write your epic love story now?"

Poppy let out a burst of cackling laughter, quick to quiet herself when noble heads turned toward her, burning with curiosity.

"When the adventurous part is over, maybe," she allowed, knowing it had to be killing Varric to be sitting on romance he wouldn't have to make up to get it written down. "I'll tell you when that is."

"I'm going to be an old man before you say yes to that, aren't I?"

"It's a distinct possibility, yes."

Varric sighed exaggeratedly, throwing a grin her way as he poured more ale into his tankard. With a quiet giggle to herself, Poppy made a valiant attempt to finish her pie, but her eyes rose yet again to the opposite table.

To Cullen, gazing back at her with a fiendishly secretive smile glimmering in his gaze, raising one eyebrow at the turn of her blush. All she could do was smile in return, her mind's eye lingering on the kisses they had shared not so very long again, on the newfound certainty that he still loved her. Work and duty had got in the way of a proper reunion ... but now the night had come, and the meal was over. Varric had said Cullen worked long into the night, every night, but she didn't think that would be the case tonight. She hoped it wouldn't be. There was still so much that hadn't been said, so much they needed to renew together. One night would not be enough. A lifetime ... well, that might be time enough.

"Just go to bed, would you?" she heard Alex sigh exaggeratedly. "This is getting nauseating."

She kicked him again for good measure, laughing as he whimpered just for her benefit, and finally rose from her seat, locking eyes with Cullen once more. He nodded to her, slowly rising from his own seat as she turned away to head for the door into the walled garden, ignoring the hopeful attempts by various nobles to get her attention as she passed them by. She had no time for them anymore, and certainly not tonight.

The sound of the gathering in the hall faded as the door swung shut behind her. Poppy breathed in the fragrant air of the little garden, smiling faintly as she recognized the scents of elfroot, embrium, Crystal Grace, even the dank tang of deep mushroom. Xena's little herb garden was coming along very well, it seemed. She stepped across the cloister, resting her temple against the cool stone of the uprights, one arm wrapped about the narrow column. Nerves flickered in her belly - would she be all he remembered? Was she good enough? Would he even bother to follow her out here?

The noise from the hall swelled for a moment at her back - she started to turn - and Cullen was _there_ , arms reaching for her, mouth hungry for more of the kisses they had been denied for far too long. She couldn't help giggling into the first of those kisses, feeling his lips curve in an answering smile lost in the heady rush of knowing that this was what she had been missing all these years. The safety, the warmth, the _love_ that Cullen could envelop her in with just a kiss filled a hole in her heart she had been nursing since the last time he had been able to touch her.

Bare hands skimmed her sides, kneading, holding, one smoothing down over her hip to pull her ever closer, the other diving into the fall of her hair, cradling her head in his palm as her hands passed restlessly up and down his back. No armor tonight, for either of them - simple jerkin and shirt for the Commander of the Inquisition, never before seen without his plate and mantle by the eager nobles until this night. But he wasn't the Commander of the Inquisition, not here, not now. He was Cullen, _her_ Cullen, and the woman in his arms wasn't Lady Hawke, wasn't the Champion, wasn't even the consultant helping the Inquisition with the Warden problem - she was _Poppy_. For the first time in a very long time, she was simply Poppy.

Stone pressed against her back as he surged forward, pinning her there quite literally between rock and a hard place, filling her mouth with his soft groan at the gentle rake of her nails through his hair. She was vaguely aware of the rise in sound behind him, and an embarrassed female voice stuttering out an apology for interrupting as he drew back from her in frustration. She caught a glimpse of Chantry robes disappearing back into the Great Hall, unable to keep herself from snorting with laughter at being interrupted again.

Cullen's frown smoothed away as he looked at her, slowly relaxing into a smile of his own as they leaned into each other in the moonslight.

"I think it's time we found a little privacy, don't you?" she murmured, tracing a fingertip along the stubbled line of his jaw.

"Maker, yes," was his fervent reply, drawing another laugh from her as she pressed a quick kiss to his lips.

She pushed him back, claimed his hand in her own, guiding him quickly away from that access way toward a door set into the outer wall of the castle. Skyhold was enormous, there was no doubting that - plenty of space for visitors and inhabitants alike - but she had been given a room beneath the Inquisitor's rooms in the tower, with a wide window that overlooked the bailey of the keep. It was a great honor, of course, to be quartered all but with the Inquisitor, but right now, Poppy was more frustrated with the sheer number of stairs required to reach the appropriate level. It was very difficult to force herself to keep going with Cullen walking close to her back, the hand she hadn't claimed brushing hungrily over her side and hip as though he couldn't bear to stop touching.

In the darkness of the hallway, she fumbled with the door handle, loosing a breathless whimper as his lips found her throat, seeking out the sensitive dip behind her jaw that he knew would turn her to water in his grasp. The door came open, and she stumbled forward, released from his arms to turn back and watch as he closed and locked the door, turning to her with predatory tenderness in his gaze. And she didn't care. For the first time in a long time, she was _glad_ to be the prey, glad to be caught and kissed and touched, reminded all over again that this was where she should be, this was where she should have stayed. She loved him.

It could have been hours later, it could have been moments, but the moons soon shone through the window on rumpled sheets and bare skin, on limbs tangled together without any wish to separate. Poppy lay on her side, facing Cullen, her fingertip teasing gently up and down a new scar on his chest; his fingers pushing through her hair to trail down her back as he brushed kiss after soft kiss to her lips.

"You look good," she murmured to him in the darkness. "Not so haggard. Not so driven. Apart from this -"

Her hand rose, gently touching the pad of her thumb to the groove between his brows, proof that a frown lived there more often than not. He, predictably enough, frowned at the touch, eyes tilting upward for a brief moment before returning to her own.

"I have headaches," he admitted quietly.

"I thought you had good supply lines here," Poppy queried in a soft voice. "Surely you're not low on lyrium?"

Cullen grimaced, a flicker of that old awkwardness touching his expression as he sighed. His hand covered her, drawing her palm to his mouth to press a hot kiss there.

"No, Poppy, I ... we have good supplies," he promised her. "I simply ... I haven't taken lyrium for over a year now, not since I left Kirkwall."

Horror flashed through her for a long moment - memories of Samson's hungry addiction, of Cullen's own descriptions of the templars in the infirmary at the Gallows when their reliance on lyrium had become too much. But no ... he wasn't raving. He wasn't haggard or grasping for something he couldn't have. He had made the decision _himself_. And she couldn't deny that it had done him so much good already. His flesh was warmer, pinker; his eyes, brighter; his mind just as sharp as it had been. He had not lost anything through this decision of his. Perhaps he could teach others to do the same, and finally break the Chantry's leash entirely.

"I wish I had been there to help you," she whispered tenderly, drawing her fingers along his cheek as his hand returned to her back, encircling her in his embrace once again. "I'm so proud of the man you've become, Cullen."

He shook his head, a deprecating smile touching his lips - lopsided, thanks to the scar Alex had branded him with years ago.

"You made me the man I am, Poppy," he murmured back to her. "Even without you there to hold me to account, I have spent years wondering what you would do. I have tried to live my life the way _you_ would want me to. I turned a blind eye to too much in Kirkwall; I allowed too many abuses, too much misery, to fester and bloom under my hand, just because I refused to let go of my own anger. I'm still angry, Poppy. But I won't let it blind me again."

She smiled sadly, knowing he had been through too much to ever let some of it go, shifting closer to touch her lips to his brow as his hands tightened on her once more, gathering his cheek to her breast, lowering her head, curling to wrap him close and stroke his hair, letting him listen to the beat of her heart as he had done so many times before.

"I will never leave you again," she whispered into the darkness. "Let the world find another Champion. I've found where I belong."


	19. Chapter 19

_**9:42 Dragon, Wintersend** _

"Whart eez zees, if you pleez?"

Cullen snorted with laughter as he shut the door behind him, watching Poppy gesture wildly at various pieces of Orlesian architecture and furniture all the while proclaiming how awful they were in the worst Orlesian accent he had ever heard. And not caring one jot if anyone else heard her, either. They were spending the night in rooms assigned to them by the new Emperor - or rather, the elven woman now holding his leash - and Poppy Hawke did not give a damn _who_ heard her mocking the nobles they had just spent far too many hours in the company of.

" _Non_ , I sink zees is atrocious. Tayk eet _away_."

She flashed him a cheeky smile, tossing her sash onto the bed as she moved toward the balcony, unbuttoning her dress jacket. He followed suit, his own jacket already mostly undone before they'd even reached the bedroom, but now his sash joined hers on the bed as he finished job, stepping out into the cool air of the dawning to take a deep breath.

"Are you done critiquing the furnishings, love?"

Resting an elbow on the stone balustrade, Poppy laughed, shaking her hair back out of her face.

"I could go on a bit longer, if you'd like," she offered. "I have a lot of opinions about Orlais and what passes for culture here."

"You're more Fereldan than I am," he accused her fondly, pulling off his gloves as he spoke. "I am never allowing Josephine to dictate what I wear ever again."

"I don't know," Poppy mused, looking him over. "You _did_ look pretty yummy all dressed up."

"Whether I did or not, the predators in that ballroom were definitely circling," he pointed out, his chest tightening for a moment.

It had not been a good feeling, to be hunted by so many preening ninnies and unable to do anything to stop them. He knew it from old, of course - for some reason, his looks attracted Orlesian noblemen and women by the score, especially in formal settings. He had learned that in Kirkwall, and only once had he complained to Meredith of the way he had been treated by the nobles. She had told him to accept it as part of his sacrifice to the Order. Only Poppy had been infuriated by the way he was treated as a conquest, or a piece of meat to be admired. And tonight, Poppy had outdone herself in embarrassing every single one of the circling vultures before they had a chance to make him feel uncomfortable. Once word got out that the Champion of Kirkwall was protecting the Commander of the Inquisition, their attention had moved elsewhere, but their eyes had stayed fixed on him.

"If Rogue was still with us, he would have done more than I did," Poppy assured Cullen, gently resting her hand on his forearm even as she tucked her own gloves into her belt. "He developed quite a taste for Orlesian undergarments during those last few years in Kirkwall."

Cullen chuckled, feeling the tension ease away again as he laid his own hand atop hers for a brief moment. She had an uncanny ability to bring out the humor in even the worst situation, he was coming to realize. For all that they had known each other intimately in Kirkwall, loved each other, it was becoming clear with each day spent in each other's company that there were whole tracts of personality on both sides that they had never had the leisure to share in their stolen moments. Her humor was one; his stubbornness to keep going in the face of his own aches and pains was another. They were still learning about each other, even after a decade of knowledge. Cullen felt privileged that she still wanted to learn about him at all.

"Perhaps one day we'll find you a worthy successor to Rogue," he suggested, rolling up his sleeves to rest more comfortably in a lean that echoed hers against the cool stone.

Poppy's smile was a little sad, but mostly fond. "Maybe," she conceded. "he saved my life so many times, that dog. I think the next mabari in my life should be yours, though. Every Fereldan boy should have a mabari at some point in his lifetime."

"Oh! Ah, no, that-that won't happen for me," Cullen stammered, shaking his head. "Not that I wouldn't _like_ it - I've wanted a mabari all my life - but ..." He cleared his throat, faltering under her expression. "I don't deserve one," he finished lamely.

"Bollocks," was her succinct response to his excuse, a robust dismissal of his opinion of himself that made him smile rather than bristle in defense. "Mabari don't care if you deserve them or not - which you absolutely do, by the way. We'll find you a mabari one day. Promise."

She grinned, lurching up from her comfortable lean to peck a kiss against his laughing lips. It was very hard to be consistently down on himself when Poppy was so determined to keep his mood quite this high. He should be exhausted, mentally wearied from the effort of dealing with Orlesians all evening, and yet he felt light and refreshed, and he was certain it was entirely down to her. It was a feeling he never wanted to let go of.

"Marry me."

It wasn't until he noticed that Poppy's eyes were wide that Cullen realized he'd actually said the words out loud. They had been running through his head every moment of every private minute they had shared since falling back into each others' lives, but he had somehow managed to keep them silent and mental. Until now, it seemed.

He cleared his throat, his hand rising to rub awkwardly at his neck under the full force of her curious surprise, preparing the retraction as tactfully as possible before he opened his mouth.

"Yes."

The words died on his tongue as she interrupted - just one word that turned his jumbling thoughts into a pure, joyful screech, slamming every other thought into reverse before it could crash into the flashing sparkle that was hearing an affirmative to a question he had never yet _planned_ to ask.

"Yes?"

Poppy's full lips curved into a laughing smile at the disbelief on his face. She knew him too well not to have guessed that the proposal had come as a shock to him as well. She nodded, stepping close to skim her hands over his sides, beneath the hang of his jacket.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I _will_ marry you."

Cullen stared at her, unseeing, letting the words run through his mind, the knowledge that she really had agreed to be his wife settling on his heart in a gentle drift. A slow smile crossed his face, his head dipping to touch his lips to hers, arms wrapping about her back to pull her close into him. This was not how he might have planned it - a Fereldan man asking a Fereldan woman to marry him at the heart of Orlesian imperialist monarchy - but since when did plans mean anything, in the long run? What mattered was the answer.

"I love you," he breathed against her lips, chuckling as she bounced on her toes, loosing a tiny breathless squeal into his mouth.

"I love you back," she promised, brimming over with excitement. "When can we do it?"

Cullen blinked, drawing his head back just far enough to take in the impatience now coloring her expression with a low laugh of his own. And he thought _he_ had been impatient in asking so soon after their reunion.

"Don't you want the full ceremony?" he asked in bemusement. Women liked the floofy dresses and the flowers and all the fuss, didn't they?

Poppy pulled a face. "I don't need it," she insisted. " _We_ don't need it. All we need is each other. Cullen, I've loved you for almost ten years. It's about time we told the world about it, don't you think?"

He blinked in confusion. "So ... you _do_ want the big fuss?"

"No." She laughed, shaking her head. "I want to wear your ring and take your name. I'm tired of being Hawke. I want to be a Rutherford."

"I ... don't have a ring," he admitted awkwardly, frowning as he realized that not having a plan for this moment might result in disappointing her, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was disappoint his Poppy.

"Cullen ..." She reached up, smoothing her thumb between his brows until his frown eased away under her smile. "Why don't we go to Val Royeaux with the Inquisitor before we set off for the Western Approach? she suggested. "We could get a pair of rings and get married in the space of a single day, and no one else needs to know what we're up to."

"Not even Alex?" he asked, surprised she wouldn't want to include her brother.

Poppy snorted with laughter, rolling her eyes. "Alex has already told me several times that, if I ever ask him to give me away, he's going to throw me off the highest tower at Skyhold," she told him in amusement, though her expression sobered before she continued. "He never really got over 'Bela, you know? Romance, couple things ... they remind him of her. He'll be happy for us, but he won't want to watch it happen."

"Are you sure about that?" Cullen asked, remembering how fervent Alex had been in soliciting the reunion that had lead to this point. He could well imagine how hurt the man might be if Poppy got married without even telling him in advance, much less asking him to be there. "I would ... I would be happier if you asked him to join us, Poppy."

She looked surprised, tilting her head to consider him. "But you and Alex can't stand each other."

He smiled gently. "That has nothing to do with it," he reminded her. "We both love _you_."

"Common ground, hmm?"

Her brow rose above her smile as she held his gaze. Cullen found himself gazing at her, the warmth of affection in his heart as strong in that moment as it had ever been before. She knew him so well, well enough to tease him while acknowledging that he had a point to make; well enough to love him while understanding that she didn't have to like everything he did or said. They had learned that about one another, that love did not mean constant happiness or never-ending agreement. But on this point, they were agreed.

"But if we wait to ask Alex," Poppy mused, "we can't do it until _after_ we've been to Adamant. I don't want to wait that long."

Cullen couldn't help chuckling gently at this display of impatience in a woman he had watched be patient with an entire city for almost a full decade. Time really had taught her to put herself first in some cases. It was wonderful to see.

"All right then," he murmured, dipping his head to touch his brow to hers with a slow sigh of contentment. "Let's get married."


	20. Chapter 20

_**9:42 Dragon, Drakonis** _

"Go ... _go!"_

With the roar of the Nightmare all around them, the disparate group ran for the rift, stumbling over the treacherous surface of what this part of the raw Fade chose to call ground. Xena went down heavily as a fearling leaped at her - Poppy spun to kick the spider-like creature off the Inquisitor, sending it reeling into the path of Alex's sharp blade as Alistair pulled Xena back onto her feet.

"Hawke!"

Poppy's head snapped around to find Varric already at the rift, turned back to call for his friends as Dorian and Cassandra plunged through the green light and hopefully into the courtyard of the Warden fortress beyond. She waved a hand at him.

"Keep going!" she yelled back. "We're coming!"

Reluctance flashed across his face, but Varric knew better than to argue, turning to jump through the rift himself. Poppy glanced back as Xena brushed past her, checking the others were still upright and moving even as she rushed forward herself.

But the Nightmare was moving, immense limbs blocking their path, dripping ichor from wounds already inflicted by the spirit that had guided them this far.

"How do we get by?" Alistair asked, each of them searching for a means to slip past the enormous demon without injury or death.

There was no way by. The fearlings clustered beneath the Nightmare, wary of the weapons but ready to fight; the demon itself filled the present moment, its hold over this part of the Fade near complete. Poppy looked down at the golden ring on her finger, the promise shared with Cullen not so very long ago echoing through her mind. _For as long as I live. I'm so sorry, Cul._

"Go," she said firmly, flexing her grasp about her dagger hilts. "I'll cover you."

"No." Alistair shook his head. "You were right - the Wardens caused this mess. A Warden must -"

"A Warden must help them rebuild," Poppy argued, anger flaring at the sight of someone else trying to make the sacrifice she was ready to make. "The world doesn't _need_ the Champion of Kirkwall."

"Yes, it does."

She blinked, surprised to hear Alex interject before the Warden could. Her brother was looking at her quite seriously, sad acceptance in his eyes. He _knew_ her. He knew she was ready to do this. She would do _anything_ to end the threat.

"Cullen needs you," Alex told her firmly. "Varric needs you. And you're right - the Wardens need to rebuild. The world needs the Inquisitor to save it. There's only one person here who can make this sacrifice."

It took barely a moment for her to realize what he was saying. Cold horror flooded her veins.

"No ... no, I won't _let_ you," she protested, shaking her head vehemently. "You can't do this, Alex. This is _my_ fault, _my_ problem, I -"

"Get her out of here," Alex told Alistair, drawing in a slow breath. "Be ready to run."

Alistair nodded, sheathing his sword. Poppy backed away from him, spinning to glare at her brother.

"I won't let you _do_ this," she said again, but Alex was smiling.

"You can't stop me, Pops," he reminded her, gently tweaking the end of her nose. "You've got a husband, a future. Don't give up on it."

A strong arm banded about her waist, lifting her up off her feet as Alistair hauled her away, ignoring the screech of anguish as she reached imploringly toward her twin brother. Alex's smile was bright, the same smile she remembered from their childhood, the smile they had shared for so long with Carver and Bethany and Father.

"Love you, Pops."

Then he turned, hefting his great two-handed sword, and Poppy screamed again as her brother, the last surviving member of her family, charged the Nightmare demon and its minions, hacking at everything that moved just to buy them time to escape. She couldn't leave him, she _wouldn't_ leave him ... but Xena and Alistair gave her no choice. With the dwarven Inquisitor leading the way, cutting down any fearlings that tried to impede them, Alistair heaved Poppy off her feet every few steps, dragging her inexorably to the rift, ignoring the way she fought to be released, the heart-rending sobs that racked her body in his grasp as she watched her brother rush fiercely to his own death.

_"Alex!"_

The rift enfolded them. A moment later, Alistair staggered into the courtyard, tripping as he went, losing his grip on his armful of Hawke. Poppy dropped to her knees, scrambling around, blindly rushing toward the rift ... and passed straight through the space where it had been, sprawling over the blood-stained flagstones as the Inquisitor sealed Alex in the Fade for good.

A ragged cheer went up from the soldiers who had been fighting demons, but Poppy barely heard them. Xena and Alistair both gave praise to the man who had given his life to save theirs, but Poppy didn't even smile. She didn't acknowledge the concerned looks from the soldiers, from the Wardens, from Xena and her companions. She barely even glanced up when Varric gripped her shoulder.

"Hawke."

"He's gone," she breathed, unwilling to believe it. "They're all gone. I killed my whole family, Varric."

"Hey ..."

She felt him groan as he lowered himself down onto one knee beside her, unconsciously leaning toward him. Behind them, Xena was giving orders, weaving the story for the common soldier to believe, but here and now, Poppy couldn't listen. It hurt too much just to breathe.

"You didn't kill anyone," Varric told her fervently. "You didn't kill your father, you didn't kill your little brother. You didn't kill Sunshine, or your mother. I was there for those. And you didn't kill Alex. He _chose_. You can't take that away from him, Hawke."

"He didn't _have_ to choose," she protested, feeling the tears burning behind her eyes, so ready to fall. "I already chose, I was _ready_ not to come back, and he ... he ..."

"He sent you back to your husband, to your friends," Varric told her quietly. "He knows what you've given up for too long. If it had been you in his place, would you have let him go to his death, knowing he had a future waiting for him in the real world?"

"I didn't get a chance to say goodbye."

His hand tightened on her shoulder as her head bowed, wishing the tears would fall. She was vaguely aware of her friend calling to someone, asking them something, but what held her fast was the gnawing ache in her heart. She'd failed. Her entire family was dead, because of her.

Father, lost to an illness because she hadn't been able to convince the healer to come to their home in time. Carver, cut down by an ogre defending their mother on the road from Lothering; she should have moved faster to intercept the blow. Bethany, succumbed to the Blight in the darkness of the Deep Roads; she would never have been down there if Poppy hadn't allowed her to go along. Mother, mutilated and abused by a blood mage who might never have known she existed if Poppy had not been investigating him. Alex, even now dying under the weight of the Nightmare, because _she_ had not fought hard enough to die in his place.

_It should have been me._

"No."

She startled at the sound of Cullen's voice, raising her heavy head to blink blearily in the strange glare of the sky. The night had passed; dawn was lighting the sky. The courtyard had emptied but for the bodies now stacked and covered by the walls. Varric stood nearby, his face a mask of worry, Xena's hand pressed against his shoulder in quiet solidarity as Cullen lifted Poppy up onto her feet. She swayed against him, meeting the tender compassion in his gaze ... and the tears finally poured from her eyes, the pain and hurt and grief welling up and overflowing as she allowed her husband to gather her close and witness the agony of having lost so much.

She felt him removing her weapons, handing them to someone else - Varric, she assumed - holding her close, rocking her gently as the sun rose on the new day. The Grey Wardens had been saved from Corypheus and from themselves; the Inquisition had been victorious. And Alex ...

"He knew the choice was coming," Cullen murmured to her, not letting her pull away in her shock. "No, listen to me. Alex knew the world was going to ask you to die for it. He chose a long time ago not to let you die. There is nothing you could have done to prevent what happened today."

Poppy just sobbed harder, pressing her face into the lion fur that cloaked his shoulders. That didn't make it better. For a long time, she had believed that Alex merely tolerated her; that he stayed with her because she was all he had left. And now ... there was no more painful way to finally know for sure that her twin brother had loved her and never said so. He'd never outright told her, and so she had never told him.

"Come on, love." Cullen began to move, bending to lift her up into his arms. "You need to eat, you need to sleep."

"I'll never sleep again," she wept, shaking her head, eyes tightly closed against seeing any curious eyes that might see her so weak in the arms of the only person she had left.

"Yes, you will," Cullen told her gently. "And I will stay with you. You are not alone, Poppy. I will _always_ be here."

She was silent for a long moment, holding tightly to him as he passed through the ruined gates toward the Inquisition camp. Then, very softly, a single word touched his ear amid the whistle of the winds picking up for the day.

"Promise?"


	21. Chapter 21

_**9:42 Dragon, Late Drakonis** _

The journey back to Skyhold was oddly subdued. Despite the victory, the Inquisitor and her inner circle were very aware of what had been lost to ensure that victory. Everyone was very careful around Poppy as the army made its slow way back toward the Frostbacks. Thus, when Cullen announced that he and his wife would catch up with them in a day or two and drew her away toward the town of Val Firmin, no one argued.

"Why are we stopping here?" she asked as they rode into the town together, but all he gave her was a mysterious glance, almost a teasing glimmer in those whiskey-warm eyes of his.

Val Firmin was a jewel, she had to admit. Built on a sloping hill overlooking Lake Celestine and the Imperial Highway, it sparkled in the gathering dusk as torches and candles were lit to hold back the night. The Chantry dominated the top of the hill, as many chantries did in Orlais, but that was not where Cullen was leading her. He drew her to a quiet district, to a neat little inn, claiming her hand in his own with an encouraging smile to lead her inside. A few words to the innkeeper, and they were sitting down to a hot meal together in a corner of the taproom while a room was prepared above them.

"Why are we here?" Poppy asked him again, curiosity overpowering the faint numbness of grief that had overshadowed everything in the past days and weeks.

"Am I not allowed to gift my wife with comfort and privacy every now and then?" Cullen countered, the sheer force of suspicious innocence in his expression drawing a weary smile from her in return.

"Cullen. I'm fine."

"You don't have to be fine, Poppy." He reached across the table, enfolding her hand within his grasp. "Not with me."

She shook her head, her smile regretful, letting her thumb stroke over his knuckle. "I don't know how to not be fine," she murmured back to him. "I've always been the one everyone else leans on."

"Lean on me," he told her, raising her hand to press a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

"I don't know how," she whispered hopelessly.

Cullen smiled tenderly at her, turning her hand to kiss her palm. "Let me show you."

How could she refuse? She had been strong for him. And, despite her protests, there _had_ been occasions when she had leaned on _him_ in the past. She knew he would look after her, wrap her bleeding heart in his love and hold her until the pain eased away, however long it took. She knew she needed it; she _needed_ to feel the pain and let it pass through her before it congealed and turned her bitter in its wake. Alex wouldn't want that. Not even her mother would have wanted grief to change her into a bitter parody of herself. Leandra may not have been the mother she would have liked, but she had loved her eldest daughter, in her own way.

Hand in hand, Cullen drew his wife to their reserved room in the quiet tavern above the taproom, where a fire was lit in the hearth, the light dancing over the surface of the steaming bath set before the fire itself. The air smelled of honeysuckle, and for the first time in what felt like an age, Poppy actually smiled without being prompted. _Honeysuckle._ The oil she used on her hair and skin for preference, and somehow Cullen had convinced the innkeeper to infuse the bath with that same oil. He caught her smile, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand, and pulled her across the room to gently divest her of her travel-stained clothing.

Only when she stood bare in front of him, tired eyes watching his gaze flicker over her skin, did he pull his own mantle from his shoulders, shaking his jerkin away and rolling up his shirt sleeves. Then he pulled her into a gentle embrace, callused hands soft against her skin, reveling in the sensation of an embrace that did not include leather or plate or weapons. He waited for her to relax, until he heard the faintest hitch in her breathing, and bent to lift her into the bath, easing her down into the steaming water as she shuddered through her aching hurts.

The water was just hot enough to sting, the heat sinking into her bones, forcing her muscles to relax as Cullen guided the cloth over her skin, the soap into her hair, working the lather in until she lolled in the bath. His hands were still chilly, thanks to the lyrium withdrawal, a pleasant counterpoint to the heat that seeped into her. Each pass of the cloth was punctuated with a gentle kiss to her shoulder; the rinsing of her hair was done so gently she might almost have been a small child in his hands. And she knew he had learned to do this for _her_. Somehow he had learned to wash hair and skin without scrubbing or becoming impatient, just for her. How had he known he would need these skills? How long had he been quietly dreading the day when she would be the last of her bloodline to stand?

When he lifted her out of the bath to dry her down, she tried to still his hands.

"You don't need to -"

"Poppy."

He paused, curling his palm to her jaw, meeting her eyes with fierce certainty that made her melt a little inside. What had she done to deserve a man who loved her like this?

"I know I don't _need_ to," he told her softly. "I _want_ to."

She actually laughed - just a gentle huff of amusement, but it was a genuine laugh, a sound that lit up his eyes with relieved affection as he rubbed the water from her skin and hair.

"You are impossible to argue with these days," she murmured fondly, smiling as he leaned in to kiss her.

"I learned from the best," he answered, letting the damp towel fall only to wrap her in the warmth of a blanket and lift her into his arms once again.

Poppy sighed, strangely contented as he settled in the wide armchair in front of the fire, holding her curled up on his lap, She nestled into him, her forehead tucked into the crook of his neck, and just ... let herself _be_. She could hear the crackle of the fire, the rattle of hooves and wheels over the cobbles outside, the rumble of conversation from the taproom below; closer to, she was aware of the sigh of Cullen's breath, and the gentle beat of his heart. And slowly, she became aware of something more.

Cullen was singing.

_"Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee all through the night ... guardians shall the Maker send thee all through the night ..."_

An old Fereldan lullaby, a song her father had sung to her when she was small and could not sleep. When shadows had threatened her peace and nightmares had haunted her young mind, Malcolm Hawke would kneel beside his children's beds and sing this lullaby to them as sparkling lights danced on his fingers, his low voice a promise that he would always be there to guard them against the fears of the night.

_"... soft the drowsy hours are creeping, hill and dale in slumber sleeping ... I, my loved ones' watch, am keeping all through the night ..."_

She remembered snuggling down into her blankets with Alex as their father sang; remembered the nights when Bethany would join them, and Carver, too, the four Hawke siblings protecting each other against the nightmares that might come for them. Through the years they had dropped away, one by one ... Father, Carver, Bethany, Mother, Alex; all gone ahead to a place that had to be better than the world that had hurt them so badly, and only Poppy remained.

_"Hark, a solemn bell is ringing clear through the night ... thou, my love, art Maker's hand winging home through the night ..."_

But not alone. No, she was not alone, not abandoned. Despite her grief, she had love still, and hope. As Alex had said, she had a future. She had Cullen, her husband; Varric, her friend. She could gather new friends around herself as she had done once before, build a family from them to cushion her against the loneliness of knowing her own kin were lost. She was loved, and that made all the difference.

_"Thedas dust from off thee shaken, soul immortal shalt thou awaken ..."_

Curled in the arms of the man she loved, bathed in firelight, wrapped in gentle affection, her bleeding heart began to heal, secure in the knowledge that she would never again be alone.

_"... with thy last dim journey taken home through the night."_


	22. Chapter 22

_**9:42 Dragon, Bloomingtide** _

"Shield!"

In the chaos of the battle, shin-deep in crystal-clear water, surrounded by the wild beauty of the Arbor Wilds, Poppy Hawke spun free of her clinch with an indoctrinated Grey Warden at the yell from the Inquisition scout. She flipped backward, landing lightly within range of her husband, who hooked an arm about her waist and pulled her safely behind his shield as red lyrium crystals shot across the field of battle toward them.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Cullen accused her mildly, grunting at the impact of the dangerous mineral against the sturdy barrier he held.

She shot him a wild grin. "Aren't you?"

From behind them came the song of Bianca and the bows of the Inquisition scouts coming forward to support the first push of the soldiery, a yell of encouragement from the chevaliers engaged in battling the unexpected elven sentinels further away from the ruins of the temple gates. Ice rained down from above, immobilizing the Grey Wardens behind their own shields as a familiar yell declared the arrival of the Inquisitor and her party.

Cullen risked a glance over his shield and released Poppy with a nod, husband and wife squaring up to what remained of their enemy here and now.

"Inquisition - charge!"

Where had all the Inquisition soldiers come from? Poppy had no idea, but then, she had never been particularly good at paying attention to her surroundings when she was fighting. She could absorb the physical layout of a battlefield in seconds, land securely each time she leapt forward or back, roll safely without harming herself, but if she was required to differentiate between friend or foe, that took a little more effort. Her fighting style in Kirkwall had been to rush ahead of everyone else and rely on her friends to keep her alive long enough that she could cut down every last one of the bastards attacking them in the first place. That ... wasn't going to work here.

She hesitated for just a moment, scanning the motion of allies and enemies, falling into step at Cullen's side as he started forward. She caught the flicker of motion that betrayed a cloaked rogue on the field - one of those red lyrium shadow creatures - and, without thinking, made a very slight gesture with her right hand. She heard Bianca sing, saw the bolt strike home in the body of a thing that had believed itself invisible, surging forward to slash her daggers across what passed for a face and urge it away from her husband. A husband who wasn't even aware he had been flanked, locked in fierce battle with a similarly armed and armored Grey Warden.

Ahead of them, Xena and her party pushed through the ranks of red templars, forcing their way past the ruined gates and into the temple grounds - they had their own mission to fulfill, their own task to perform. And for a moment, Poppy was surprised to note that Varric was not with them. She had been so sure he would not want to let Xena out of his sight, especially now he had accepted there was more than just friendship in his heart for the fiery Inquisitor. But no ... he was right there beside her, just where he had been for a decade in Kirkwall, where she had wanted him to be even after she had left that broken city.

He caught her glance, flashing a grin. "So ... how many have you got, Hawke?"

She snorted with laughter, feeling the tension of the raging fight ease away with the sudden familiarity of her friend's light humor. A red templar loomed behind Varric; he ducked as she spun, the metal claw on her boot cutting deep into the lyrium-bloom of the man's chest. Varric pushed him over as he gurgled and gasped for breath, both of them turning to see Cullen stagger back and fall under a fierce blow from his opponent. A harsh shriek stoppered her breath as the Warden's blade swept down and glanced off Cullen's pauldron, catching his temple as it rebounded in a splash of fresh blood.

"Shit." Varric's curse shook her out of her shock. "Go for it, I'll keep it clear."

With barely a nod, Poppy went from a standing start to a full run, heedless of the enemies that reached for her. Each one went down with a bolt from Bianca buried in his head or throat, the last falling to his knee directly in front of her. Poppy leapt, planting her foot firmly on the falling body before her to launch herself high into a flip that passed over Cullen's head, over the Warden's head, into the press of Inquisition bodies finishing off the last of this wave.

She landed firmly, turning with smooth grace to draw her stiletto from her belt and stab it through the links of the Warden's chainmail. As he stiffened, lifting his head in agony, her other hand came around to draw her dagger's blade across his throat. He dropped in a crash of weapons and armor, leaving her looking down at Cullen, who was definitely looking incredulous. Apparently he had forgotten just how acrobatic Poppy's somewhat unique method of fighting really was.

"You're bleeding," she informed her husband, reaching down to offer him her hand.

He let her pull him up, standing his sword in the grassy knoll that rose out of the water they stood in to lift his gloved hand to his temple. He winced, glancing at the blood on his fingers.

"I had it under control," Cullen told her, sighing as she wiped her daggers clean and sheathed them, already dipping his head so she could inspect his little injury.

"Curly, you were on the ground," Varric pointed out. "Aren't you the one that says a man down is a man dead?"

"I have never said that in my life," Cullen answered with a frown. "Are you confusing me with your terrible characterization of me again?"

"Again? Me? Never."

Poppy snorted with laughter, dabbing a cloth impregnated with healing potion over the little wound.

"You got lucky," she told her husband firmly. "That blade could have cut your throat or scalped you."

"It could have caught you in mid-air," he tried to counter, but she wasn't having it.

She didn't care that his troops were aware their commander was being told off by his new wife in the middle of a battle - after all, she was the Champion of Kirkwall before she was his wife. She knew what she was talking about when it came to fighting. They'd seen her beat him in sparring matches more than once since she had come to the Inquisition.

"You know perfectly well that half my success comes from my speed," she reminded Cullen firmly. "He wouldn't have touched me, because he didn't notice me until I was already on the ground behind him. By which time, I'm sure you noticed, he had other problems."

Cullen rolled his eyes, glancing around at the men and women doing their best not to look as though they were paying any attention at all. He sighed, drawing Poppy's hand down from his brow.

"We'll talk about this later," he suggested.

"At length," she agreed, grinning as she lifted onto her toes to kiss the tip of his nose. "I still love you."

"I'm flattered," Cullen drawled, drawing his sword as a yell went up from behind them.

"Scouts report another wave of red templars approaching from the south, behemoths among them," Charter was calling as she skirted their chosen battleground. "Those elven sentinels are cutting in from the east - Nightingale suggests pulling back and letting them fight it out between them before claiming the river again."

Poppy frowned, tilting her gaze toward Cullen. He was the strategist, the one best able to visualize the field and how best to make use of both hostile forces in such a situation. He was nodding, swift to turn and give orders.

"Pull back, conceal yourselves. Wait for my order to attack the survivors. Varric, with us."

As soldiers and scouts melted into the lush richness of the Wilds and its abundant greenery, Poppy moved to follow Cullen without a second thought, knowing without needing to ask that he didn't want her away from his side. They had argued fiercely about whether or not she would come along on this first push at all, and he had lost - her concession in victory had been to promise obedience in all things while they were in combat.

Ahead of her, Varric dropped out of sight through some bushes; a moment later, Cullen ushered her after her friend, and she found that the stormheart deposit broke away immediately behind the greenery, offering up a hole a couple of feet deep in which the three of them could crouch safely and unseen. Cullen dropped down behind her, and together they knelt, peering through the greenery as the sound of the red templars' approach made itself known.

Her fingers tightened on Cullen's shoulder as she caught sight of her first behemoth, the fear response only too natural in the face of something so unnatural. He reached up to claim her fingers, squeezing gently in answer. He knew how intimidating that first look could be. She could feel the vibration of the earth beneath them with each step the hulking monsters took, unable to believe that just a few months before they had been men. Unable to express how deep her relief went that Cullen had broken from the templars before their masters had done this to them.

Then the clash as the elves broke cover on the other side of the river. Poppy had not yet laid eyes on these unexpected enemies, but now she could see them clearly. They were not city elves, their faces painted with vallaslin, but neither were they Dalish, that much was clear. They were taller than other elves she had known, a uniformity to their armor and weapons, their movements, that no other elven company she had known could have presented. She couldn't imagine Merrill among their number, for example. In some unknown way, these elves felt older, more powerful, more forbidding than any other elf she had ever met. _Perhaps this is how the elves **should** be._

They destroyed the red templars with seeming ease, their fluid movements devastating more than just the coherence of Corypheus' army. The behemoths could not move quickly enough to counter the attacks; the shadows were out-stealthed; the foot soldiers and knights and horrors were simply overwhelmed, unable to respond to the speed of the attack before they were bleeding out into the icy water.

"Inquisition!"

Cullen roared out his call to arms, and Poppy rose with him, dragging Varric up and out of their hole by the scruff of his neck before breaking into a run to charge the elves. Across the ford, Inquisition forces were breaking cover, closing on the elven sentinels as they turned to meet their foe. The blood pounded in her ears, the familiar surge of ever-suppressed rage at the world around her rising to lend her strength and speed to match her enemy. The Champion of Kirkwall was a whirlwind in any battle, yet heedless of her own safety - those who fought with her generally found themselves protecting her back rather than engaging their own opponents. Varric was used to it; Cullen and the Inquisition, not so much.

Yet when the roaring in her ears faded, the water ran red with blood ... elven blood. And Poppy felt sick to look at it, to see the slickness on her blades and know that she had taken part in another unnecessary slaughter of the elven people. She turned away from the bodies that littered the stream, catching Varric's eye. He knew what she was feeling, both of them quietly hoping Merrill never heard about this. She had never wanted to be a part of the way the Chantry-led world treated those who were not human.

A familiar hand touched the back of her neck, and she turned toward Cullen, leaning into him as he laid his forehead to hers, breathing hard in the wake of the battle.

"You are bloody terrifying," he muttered to her, and she laughed, her guilt broken in amusement at the fact that her husband was only just realizing this about her. "Now I know why thugs in Kirkwall used to pretend they were just walking by when you were out and about."

Poppy drew in a slow breath, smiling as she kissed his blood-spattered cheek. "Be grateful Fenris isn't here," she murmured back to him teasingly. "If you think I'm bad, you haven't seen _anything_ yet."

Whiskey-warm eyes smiled without his lips sharing the expression, a smile meant just for her as they separated once again. He hefted his shield, looking around the clearing.

"Inquisition, fan out," he ordered, watching as the soldiers and scouts did just that, moving to cover the area they had claimed and would hold to the death if necessary. "This battle isn't over yet."

The sounds of the disparate skirmishes still echoed through the trees, more blood being spilled all around them. They just had to hope that Xena and her party had made it through; that she would be able to deny Corypheus the prize he sought, or all this death would have been for nothing. As red templars broke from the cover on the banks, Cullen turned to face them, Poppy at his side.

The Inquisition would not break today.


	23. Chapter 23

_**9:42 Dragon, Solace** _

 

Skyhold was so quiet without the majority of the Inquisition in residence.

Poppy was uncomfortably reminded of Kirkwall in the days following the Qunari invasion, a population discovering slowly just how much had been lost in the chaos, a stillness covering everything for days. There was no such mourning here and now, of course - indeed, the Inquisition had just achieved a victory over Corypheus in the Arbor Wilds. But most of the Inquisition were still _in_ the Arbor Wilds, dealing with prisoners, ferrying the wounded safely out of harm's way. The only reason _she_ was in Skyhold was because she had outright refused to be left behind when Cullen had joined the rest of Xena's inner circle to rush ahead to the fortress.

But there was a restlessness hanging over Skyhold. Corypheus' army had been defeated, not Corypheus himself. No one knew better than Poppy that he would not give up so easily.

She pushed away from the gatehouse battlements, turning back to look into the lower courtyard, quietly agitated in herself. Xena and her advisors were closeted in the war room; the rest of the inner circle were in their accustomed places around the fortress, each waiting to be told what the next step would entail. A skeleton crew of guards and servants made the fortress seem far less populous than it had been just a few weeks before. But that lack of people made unknown faces very easy to spot.

It was a dwarf that had caught her attention. Ordinarily, dwarves were a regular sight in Skyhold, the much-needed connection to the lyrium supply from Orzammar, but this one ... there was something furtive in the way he moved. He walked with purpose, certainly, but kept glancing around, as though expecting to be challenged at any moment. Poppy's eyes narrowed.

_Best not to disappoint him, then._

Passing through the unused gatehouse and down the steps into the upper courtyard, she lengthened her stride to intercept the furtive dwarf as he reached the top of the wide steps from the lower courtyard. He stuttered out an apology as she ran into him, barely catching his breath before her hand clamped onto his shoulder and dragged him back under the arch of the stairway that lead to the keep proper. Bearded and tattooed - _Carta, or casteless-turned-exile,_ she realized - the dwarf glared up at her as Poppy pressed him against the stone.

"Who sent you?" she asked, pleasant enough for the time being.

"Messenger from the camp," he answered her in a gruff tone, though she noted he was clever enough not to try and pull out of her grasp.

"Nice try," Poppy countered. "But you're not wearing any insignia I recognize, and you move like someone worried about being caught. Now ... there are two people who could have sent you that immediately spring to mind. One of them will result in you being put in the cells; the other will result in you turning around and taking a message back from me. Lying to me will result in more than a few bruises. You look like a clever lad. So who sent you?"

She could see the options flickering through the dwarf's mind - was his employer worth getting himself beaten up by the Champion of Kirkwall? No one was worth that. Inviting the woman who had killed the Arishok to kick the Void out of you was stupidity worthy of a prize, and they both knew it. He sagged a little under her grip, pulling a neatly-folded letter from his pocket. Poppy glanced at the initial written on it, and felt a part of herself growl. _Bianca._

"Where is she?" she demanded, her grip tightening on the dwarf's shoulder. "In the camp?"

He winced at the bite of her fingers through his cloak. "Not here, messare," he swore vehemently. "Traveling with her husband."

"But she found the time to write this and send it here," Poppy pointed out with a scowl. She considered her captive for a moment. "Are you her courier of choice?"

The dwarf cleared his throat awkwardly. "For Ferelden and the Marches," he told her. "Personal courier."

"How many of these letters have you delivered to Varric over the years?" she asked suspiciously.

"Too many," he admitted. "It's steady money, messare."

Poppy paused, thinking over her options. She knew that Varric had called it off with Bianca, not simply because he had begun a relationship with Xena - who, in her opinion, deserved her friend infinitely more than the smith who had kept him hanging for years - but also because he had shown her the letter he had sent to Bianca making his position absolutely clear. That Bianca would disregard his request to cut all ties was enough to make Poppy angry. But she could see a way to deal with it while preserving Varric's opinion of the woman he had once loved.

"That steady money should have dried up already," she told him honestly. "Varric wants nothing more to do with her, and I will not allow my friend to be badgered and prodded at by someone who forfeited her right to his attention years ago. I am going to burn this letter. You are going to assure her that you delivered it. I am sure she'll send another one when she gets no reply. You will burn it. You will burn every letter she gives you to give to Varric, and you will swear blind that you delivered them. And I won't hunt you down and make you regret ever lying to me. Are we clear?"

His eyes narrowed as he looked up at her. "What do I get out of this, messare?"

Poppy bent down until she was glaring into his eyes from barely an inch away, her voice low with menace. "To walk away."

The dwarf swallowed, apparently not needing much time to weigh his options at this point. An offer to have your ability to walk removed by a human legend in her own lifetime could do that.

"Right you are, Messare Hawke," he agreed. "Tethras won't get another letter from her via my hands."

"Glad to hear it." Poppy straightened, removing her hand from his shoulder, and jerked her head back toward the gatehouse and the bridge to the mechanized lift. "Sod off."

The unfortunate messenger did just that, taking the steps back down to the lower courtyard a good deal faster than he'd come up them. Poppy frowned, looking down at the letter in her hands. It was so tempting to open it, to find out exactly what Bianca thought she was doing, but at the same time ... these were private words. They were words that were not meant for anyone but Varric, and though Poppy had no intention of letting him find out they had ever been written, she wouldn't betray her friend by reading them.

"Although it really doesn't surprise me that she doesn't understand what the word "no" means," she muttered to herself, inserting one corner of the folded and sealed parchment into the flame of the nearest torch.

And, without warning, green light flashed across the world, a ponderous crack of thunder following it as high above the clouds swirled, horribly familiar to anyone who had looked up at the sky following the explosion at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The burning parchment dropped from Poppy's fingers as he head snapped up, hearing the cursing that rose from everyone in this outer area.

_Corypheus._

So he had surfaced. Too arrogant to run and hide, to lick his wounds and try again years from now, he was forcing a confrontation. And by the look of things, he had gone back to Haven to reopen the Breach.

She felt a flare of anger that her mistake had come back to haunt so many people all over again, her feet already moving toward the armory. She wasn't the only one headed in that direction - Iron Bull, Sera, Blackwall; they were all moving to collect their weapons, expecting to accompany the Inquisitor to this final confrontation. Poppy glanced up at the window of the war room, seeing Josephine's frightened face, Leliana's impassive wariness at her back.

A few minutes later, and she was ducking out of the armory, settling her armor and weapons about herself, unsurprised to be stepping aside as Xena and Varric hurried past her to arm themselves. Servants were bustling, throwing together packs for the journey down to the site of the Inquisition's first defeat; on the other side of the bailey, she could hear Master Dennet and his grooms preparing the mounts for their party. And there was Cullen, stone-faced, worry in his eyes as she tightened the last buckle and moved to join him for these few moments.

"I have to go," she told him before he could open his mouth to argue. "Corypheus was _my_ mistake in the first place. I have to be there."

"I know." Cullen's sigh was heavy, but accepting, his hands falling to her shoulders as he looked into her eyes. "I want to come with you, but ..."

She reached up, gently curling her fingers to his cheek. "I know," she promised, drawing him down to press her brow to his. "We're going to win this, Cullen. I _am_ coming back."

"Maker, _please_ ..."

Heedless of any curious eyes that might turn to them, he pulled her into his arms, burying his face in the crook of her neck as she wrapped her own arms tight about him. She could feel him trembling, knew he could feel her shaking in answer. This was a fight she might not come back from ... but she refused to admit that aloud. She had lost too much not to have earned her happy ending. Not even Corypheus was going to keep her from having that promised home with her husband at long last. She just had to see this through to the end that loomed over them.

"Hawke."

Varric's voice as he passed, his hand on her back, drew her out of that embrace, a warning that there would be no waiting for her if she missed their departure. Cullen stiffened, his lips warm against her temple before he let her step back. No more words - everything that needed to be said between them had been said too many times before. All that remained was hope; hope that there would be no more need for such words when she returned again.

Poppy nodded to her husband, falling into step with the rest of Xena's motley crew, all of them somber with the knowledge that this really was the final confrontation. Riding out of Skyhold, turning their faces to the looming threat of the Breach, they all knew just one thing ... it was Corypheus or the world.

No more chances.


	24. Chapter 24

_**9:42 Dragon, Solace**_  
  
Music played, drink flowed, the hall was filled with smiles and chatter. The tension of the last year evaporated in celebration and song. Corypheus was dead; the Breach was sealed once and for all. It was over.   
  
In the midst of the celebration, Cullen leaned against the wall beside his wife, releasing a long, low sigh.  
  
"Is it me, or do we have a moment to breathe?"  
  
Poppy chuckled into her wine glass. "Just a moment," she agreed, shifting her lean until her shoulder rested against his.   
  
His laugh answered hers, his arm rising to loop over her shoulders and hold her close against him, calm and comfortable with letting everyone there see the love he had for his fierce wife.   
  
"I think you're right," he agreed, kissing her temple. He nodded toward the table opposite, where Varric and Xena were telling wild stories for the amusement of Cole and Sera and others. "She brought us here. She's proof that the Inquisition made a difference. That we will continue to do so."  
  
"The soldiers put their trust in _you_ , Cul," Poppy reminded him, tilting her head to meet his self-effacing gaze. "You're the commander they follow, the man they trust. This victory is yours as much as it is theirs."  
  
He smiled, almost dismissing the fond assurance as he squeezed her to his side. "When I think back to the man I was when we met," he murmured softly, "I am ashamed that I lost sight of the real worth of the world, and of the people in it. You taught me to see things rightly, that the action of individuals does not always pertain to the people as a whole. That it is possible to move on from pain and torment, and find the path again."  
  
"You did that yourself," she began, but he shook his head, cutting her off with another easy smile.   
  
"It would not have occurred to me to try without your influence," he told her. "Thanks to you, I am almost free. I will be able to help others free themselves from the Chantry's leash."  
  
" _We_ will," she corrected him in a soft tone, smiling at the surprise on his face. "Cullen, you married me, remember? You're all I have, all I want. Where you go, I go."  
  
Cullen frowned worriedly as he held her gaze. "But you should not mold your life to mine at the expense of ambitions you may have for yourself, love."  
  
Poppy's expression softened. "Cullen ... my whole life has been about other people," she told him quietly. "About what they want and need, about how I can help them. For as long as I can remember, what I wanted wasn't as important as what everyone else wanted. But is it so hard to believe that I _want_ to make you the center of my world? That _you_ are all I want, and that helping you achieve your goals, your ambitions, is as important to me as it is to you?"  
  
He twisted to face her, one shoulder pressed against the wall as his hand rose to touch her cheek.   
  
"Tell me one thing," he told her softly. "One thing, one dream, you have. Let me make something come true for _you_ , Poppy."  
  
Her smile flickered, a hint of mischief in her gaze as she reached for his hands, drawing his palm over her waist from one hip to the other to twist herself into his arms.   
  
"You already have," she told him, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. "I look forward to seeing your expression when you discover it."  
  
Confusion furrowed his brow, even as he smiled back at her. "Discover what?"  
  
Poppy chuckled, kissing him once again. "You'll see. I have to talk to Cole a moment. Do _try_ and enjoy the party without me, sweetheart."  
  
She squeezed his hand against her a moment longer before stepping away, leaving her cup in his hand. Cullen watched her with a bemused expression on his face. He was fairly sure she hadn't actually answered his question, still spending her life, her energy, on pleasing other people over herself. But she had never _lied_ to him, not even when a lie would have been kinder than the truth. So what had he missed, he wondered, sipping from the cup she had pressed into his grasp.   
  
And kept wondering, his eyes following his wife around the room, unaware of the faint smile playing over his face. He watched as she laughed with Varric and Xena, as she danced with Dorian, shared a plate full of cakes with Sera, bowed teasingly to Vivienne and received a smile in return.   
  
But that was Poppy, wasn't it? She could make friends with anyone, at any time. She saw something in everyone around her that made them want to be the person she believed them to be. Even the Arishok had respected her; Meredith had been wary of what the Champion might have seen in her. According to Xena, even Corypheus had taken a second look when he realized that Poppy was at her back. She was a force of nature, a pivot on which the world could spin, and yet she never acknowledged it. All she did, all she had done, had been for the good of others, never asking for the acclaim that came with it. She had paid a heavy price for the respect of the world around her ... but he knew she would give it all up in an instant if her friends needed her to do so. If he needed her to do so. And that was why they loved her, why _he_ loved her. Why Alex had sacrificed himself for his twin, why the world needed her.   
  
Yet she insisted that all she wanted was _him_ , her husband, and this mysterious something he had apparently already given her. She had been through the worst that life could throw at her, lost everything and gained back only some of what had been taken, yet still she smiled and laughed. She was still _Poppy_.  
  
Cullen smiled to himself, pushing from the wall to set his cup down, moving to catch her hand and pull her out of the press of people, reveling in the brightness of her smile.  
  
"Enough of this," he said softly, kissing her knuckles. "The world can have you tomorrow. Tonight, you are mine."  
  
She laughed, letting him draw her under his arm and away from the celebration.   
  
"I'm yours every night, Commander."  
  
His grin was wicked, glad to see her eyes darken in lovingly lustful reply. Just one look, and she melted. Had it always been like that, even from the start? He could hope. They had been parted for too long; never again. She was his now, and he was hers, joined in the Maker's eyes 'til death and beyond.  
  
"You will never doubt it again."


	25. Chapter 25

_**9:50 Dragon, Justinian** _

"When the pains come ... I can't breathe. I can barely stand. I have days when I-I can't remember my own mother's face ... I ..."

Cullen reached out, laying his hand firmly on the former templar's shoulder.

"I cannot promise that you will regain those memories you have lost," he said quietly. "But you will not be alone to break this leash. We will help you find your freedom again."

The older woman met his eyes with anguished hope.

"How did you do it?" she asked, her voice rippling with awe. "You had none of the help that you give us."

Cullen's expression softened, remembering his own pain - pain that still struck him now and then, but no longer held him at bay.

"I didn't do it for myself, when I began," he told her honestly. "I began because someone I loved would have wanted me to be free. I continued because I needed to prove to myself it could be done. And I succeeded because that someone came back into my life just when I might have given up."

The other former templar smiled, in spite of her shaking pains.

"She's Champion of more than Kirkwall, then," she said approvingly.

Cullen chuckled, patting the woman's shoulder.

"She hates being called that," he warned with a smile, rising to his feet. He gestured to one of the apprentices. "Hallen ... take Ser Fionn inside and get her settled in."

"Yes, ser!"

As the boy nodded, snapping to attention, Cullen looked back to his newest patient.

"If I may, I would like to ask the healer to look at you," he told Fionn gently. "He is a mage, but his first instinct is for potions and ointments. He will never use magic without speaking to you of it first, you have my word."

Fionn frowned, but nodded as she rose to her feet, her movements stiff. Cullen could remember that feeling, whenever everything hurt so much that even the slightest motion felt like a struggle uphill. But he could also remember the harsh, instinctive distrust of mages and magic, the teachings of the Chantry and of bad personal experience so deeply ingrained that the thought of trusting one with your own health was almost unthinkable. Yet Poppy had said that learning to take each mage as an individual and not a reflection of the worst magic could offer without proof was as much a step on the road to recovery as living without lyrium, and she was right. That was why they had asked the College of Magi to provide a couple of spirit healers to join the sanctuary when it had first been created.

He gripped her arm, holding the older ex-templar's gaze with a confidence he knew she couldn't yet share.

"You will be free, Fionn," he promised her quietly. "I swear it."

Her fingers gripped his forearm painfully tight for a long moment, and that, too, he remembered. That feeling of being lost, out of control, needing to cede control in order to find it again. It felt unnatural, but it was the only way. He held her gaze for a long moment, watching as she found her strength once more.

"By the Maker's Grace, I shall," she agreed.

Cullen watched her walk away with young Hallen, only letting out his breath when she was far enough away not to hear the exhalation. It got no easier, seeing former templars come to them, desperate to be free of the lyrium leash they had borne for too long. But there was pride, too, in knowing that they came here, that they had faith that they could achieve everything he had done. And speaking of achievements ...

"Da!"

He turned at the sound of that familiar pair of voices, clamoring over one another to be the first heard, the loudest, the one to get his attention for themselves, remembering just in time to brace himself as two young figures barreled into him - Camren and Alex, his twin sons, ten years old and eager to be older still.

"We saw the queen, Da!" Cam declared cheerfully, grimacing as his brother elbowed him out of the way.

"She shook Ma's hand and said we're nearly as big as her!" Alex added with a gleeful grin.

"And I hope you were gentlemen," Cullen told his sons, grinning as they nodded with enthusiasm. "What have you done with your mother?"

"She's over there," Cam said, waving one hand dismissively.

Cullen chuckled, rolling his eyes at the twin boys. They were an exhausting delight, the pair of them, as much like him as they were like their mother, curly-haired and blue-eyed and forever getting into scrapes. And they had been such a surprise. To go from alone to married and a father of twin boys within a year ... it could have been too much to cope with. _Could_ have been. But Poppy was his wife, the mother of his children, and he was certain there was nothing she could not cope with. _Well, within reason,_ he mused, letting the boys pull him toward the stable. _Being abandoned to unload the cart alone in favor of her husband’s company probably annoys her a little._

Not that it was obvious, if it had. Poppy was chuckling with the stable-lads at the antics of Scout, the Rutherford mabari, wagging his stubby tail as he danced around in pursuit of a wayward feather. Found in Orlais, he was never going to be a _proper_ mabari, but with toddlers around, Cullen had never truly minded that. Scout was devoted to Alex and Camren, and to little Beth, even now being lifted down from the cart by her doting mother. Four years old, brown-haired and amber-eyed, the sunny little girl beamed at her father as she found her feet.

"Da!"

"Hello, sunshine," he answered, bending to sweep her up onto his hip to the tune of her giggles. "And hello, love."

This was offered to Poppy, earning him a smile and a kiss before she lifted a couple of the sacks onto her shoulder.

"Miss me?" she teased, laughing as he kissed her again.

"Always."

Beth's fingers tangled into his hair, drawing his attention back to his youngest as Poppy turned to corral the boys into being helpful for just a little while longer. It was a joy to see them together, watching as his wife loaded up the boys with teasing affection, as Scout finally caught his feather and brought it over to present it to little Beth; to see Poppy at the heart of their family. She had lost so much, too much. It was a privilege to have been the man to give her back what she needed more than anything - the unconditional love of a family who adored her.

It had been ten years since the end of Corypheus, eight years since the disbanding of the Inquisition, and Cullen could honestly say he had never been happier. Though the threats of the world were still out there, in this small corner that belonged to them, he was content. He had purpose in helping others break their lyrium leash; he had pride in the children growing up like weeds before his eyes; but most importantly, he had Poppy. They had struggled a long time to get here, to this sense of domestic peace that was all their own. All the pain had been worth it.

Let others take charge of the world outside ... this life, this home, this _love_ was theirs, and no one could take it from them. Poppy had earned it, through blood and tears. A hard-won peace, and a family to love; she had never asked for more. And he would defend it to the last, if _anyone_ dared to threaten it now.

 _If ye break faith with us who die_  
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow  
In Marcher fields.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done! It's been a lot of fun, and I'm so glad so many people joined me on this interesting journey from DA2 to post-Trespasser for Cullen and Poppy. Thank you so much!


End file.
